Shockwave

by Kenjut

Something is amiss...The Tardis is knocked off-course during Donna's flight lesson, so the Doctor decides to investigate, but perhaps ignorance is truly better in this case. Maybe this time, the world will loose.

Disclaimer:

I don't own either series, just this story, so no sueing!

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~+~x~+~

A whirring wind blew around the room, as an object in the shape of a box faded in and out in time with the sound. By the time the sound had died down to a quiet, steady hum so low that a pin drop could drown it out. The doors flung open, and a man wearing a brown pin-stripped suit popped his head through the gap.

"Oh yes...now this is new." Said the man, stepping out of the blue box while looking around the room. Behind him followed a woman with amber hair.

"You know, just for once, I'd like to land in a place with a spa in front of the door," she said. Following the man's lead, and glancing around the room as well.

"Oh, but closets are the best places to land...you can find out a lot about a place just by looking at what they keep in the attic!" Said the man as he ran his finger along the smooth surface of a black case. The red-haired woman thought back to the reason they had come here by...

~+~Flashback~+~

"Alright, shall we try the lesson again?" Asked the tall man in a brown pin-striped suit. The woman with red hair standing in front of him smiled widely at the suggestion, running up to the circular golden base of the metal and glass column which stood at the center of the large room.

"Don't give me any hints, Doctor, I'm already in super-temp mode!" She said with excitement. The Doctor settled down on the bracing rail, leaning against it as he watched with a mix of curiosity and disbelief.

"...Pull the dimensional stabilizer...bring vortex synchronizer power to full, and-"

"Watch it Donna, watch your temporal allocator!" Said the Doctor, as he watched the speed of one of the needles on the right side of the Tardis controls. Donna cocked her head to look at device he was talking about.

"Hold up a tick, I thought you said this was the allocator?" The Doctor looked down at were she was pointing to and smiled.

"I made that exact same mistake for the first, oh...four-hundred years or so I flew the Tardis." He said with a grin, chuckling lightly to himself as thoughts of travels past popped into his head. "I almost always got the era I was trying to land in wrong because of it....always landing centuries off!" Donna rolled her eyes as the Doctor leaned back against the railing, gazing out into the golden hues of the ceiling. She grabbed hold of the down-turned leaver just outside of his field of vision, and quickly flipped it up. The room lurched, knocking the Doctor out of his daze.

He pulled the screen that was just in front of his companion over to him in a near panic. "What was that?" Donna smiled at his confusion.

"Nothing...just making sure the needle on the temporal allocator didn't go too far in the mauve..." The Doctor looked at her with a mixture of shock and confusion, which quickly gave away to amusement as a grin began to make its way to the surface. Just as he was about to return to his day dreaming, another jolt rustled through the Tardis, knocking the pair off their feet as the lights went dark. With only the green glow of the center column and the surrounding circuit-lights, both Donna and the Doctor pulled themselves back up. The red-haired woman moving much slower than the millenia-old Time Lord, whom had lept to his feet and was quickly working the controls as the lights came back on.

She asked: "What the hell was that!?"

"I don't know...it felt like some sort of-" He stopped as he watched the circular emblems on the screen change erratically. "Time compression wave..." A look of horror spread across the Doctor's face, as he watched the screen.

Donna, curious as to what the Doctor was talking about, came in closer. "What's a time compression wave?" She asked. The Doctors expression changed; a sly grin started spreading across his face as he looked back up at Donna.

"I don't know," He said, that grin turning into a full-blown smile. "Why don't we go and find out?"

~+~End Flashback~+~

The Doctor examined the door at the front of the room, while Donna simply stayed back, looking over some of the things being kept on the shelves. She ran her hand over the black surface of the case the Doctor had been examining before, and noticed that the latches were unlocked. Pulling the lip of the case with her fingers, she glanced inside.

"...Doctor," She called out, but the Doctor was already preoccupied with the electronic lock next to the door.

"Oh, very interesting--this lock has a dead-bolt seal on it. Don't worry, its not active-"

"Doctor," She said more forcefully this time to grab his attention. Donna turned back toward him, just as he did the same.

"Hmm? Found something?" He asked with his hand already in his coat pocket. Donna nudged her head down to the box.

"You tell me." She pulled the lid all the way up to reveal its contents. The Doctor grinned in surprise as he reached out to touch the object.

"Ohh, look at that," He said as he picked up the weapon. Studying it for a moment, he felt along the underside right next to the blade.

"What is it?" Asked Donna, whom was watching the Doctor intently. She had never seen a weapon like this; it looked like a sword--it certainly had the bladed edge of one, but its girth was too wide. Its handle looked differently than what she would have expected it too, resembling the grip of a gun more than anything. The Doctor ran his hand over the neck, examining the barrel that jutted out from the center.

"I'm not entirely sure. It looks like some sort of-"

"Who the hell are you?" Asked a voice from behind them. Both turned in unison to see where that voice had come from. "For that matter, how did you get in here?" The young woman asked. Without even needing to check the Doctor's expression, Donna could feel that this was just going to be one of those occasions.

~+~X~+~*~+~X~+~

"Squall, cumm'on, ya' need to loosen up man, 'else yer gonna end up havin' a heart attack." Said a man with short blond hair sitting directly across the table from Squall. The person in question scowled stoically, as he watched his friend nearly in hail the hot dog in his hand.

"Yeah! Your waaay too high-strung...come on, being the new headmaster can't be that bad." Squall shot a side-long glance to the girl sitting next to him; her long, brown hair contrasting sharply with her yellow sun dress, and let out a defeated sigh.

Crossing his arms as he organized his thoughts, he silently wished for something--anything to come up and save him from having to deal with all of the excess nagging his friends were bombarding him with. "I hadn't realized that the both of you had received degrees in psychology," he replied. While he hadn't really been expecting much of a response from the pair, Squall couldn't help but raise an eye brow as the two started snorting in credulously.

"Now that's what 'um talkin' about!" The blond man said as he covered his mouth to keep bits of half-chewed food from flying out as he spoke, though unsuccessfully. He rolled his eyes as he wiped some of the mess off of his leather jacket.

"A cafeteria! I love cafeterias, you can always tell how well an civilization is doing by seeing what kinda food's being kept under the warmers. Well, that, and by checking on what they keep in their janitor's closet..." Spouted an unfamiliar voice from behind. Squall turned toward the entrance to see pair he didn't recognize standing there with Nida. The first, a tall, skinny man in a brown trench coat, and wild, slightly unkempt hair was skimming over the contents which laid beneath the glass of the tray-line...not paying any attention to the service ladies on the other side whom were eying him with careful curiosity. Behind him stood a slightly shorter woman with shoulder-length red hair. She was standing with her arms crossed, and was rolling her eyes at the antics of the man. There was just something about her made Squall feel at home.

"Hey, who're they?" Asked his blond friend. "I thought we weren't expecting any visitors until the Garden got back to Balamb."

"We're not Zell." He replied, without taking his eyes off of the pair. There was something strange about them...not because the acted like polar opposites, no, there was just something off that Squall couldn't put his finger on.

The woman with red hair wrinkled her nose at him as she looked away from the line. "Okay space-man, either buy something or don't...it's probably only hamburgers and hot dogs anyway!"

"Hey...do those guys seems little, I don't know, off to anyone else?" Selfie asked. Looking back at the pair sitting across from him, he could feel his gut twist in agreement.

Zell shook his head in slight confusion, "Yeah, they do." He lifted his hand up to his chin, lightly setting his head into his fist as he pondered aloud; "it's almost as if, they there very being here should be impossible." The wave of unanimous agreement was unsettling at best, and at worst, well, every instance the young mercenary had was contradicting another.

Looking back over his friends, Squall said, "you too?" The two shifted their gazes to settle back on him in response to his question.

All the while a list of questions also came flooding into his mind; 'Who are they? Why are they here...and most importantly, how did they get here undetected?' The mercenary thought to himself, but before he could dive any deeper into his own questions, he felt a hand tap his shoulder.

"Ah, Squall?" Asked Nida from behind him. The young headmaster turned around to the Garden's head pilot, whom fidgeted in slightly tired annoyance. "We caught these two poking around in the SeeD weapons storage room." He said, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice as he pointed to the bickering pair behind him. A sudden sharp SLAP rang through the room, as the woman with red hair struck the man in the long brown overcoat.

"Oi! What was that for!?" He asked as he rubbed a quickly-reddening cheek with his hand. The woman with red hair crossed her arms and turned away, tilting her head to the side, as she scrunched her lips together.

"Because your making a scene." She went on, "Look around you Doctor, they're all staring..." Noticing the crowd of students watching them with interest, and more than a few snickering, the one whom the woman had called, 'Doctor', simply stared back in curious amusement.

"What, haven't you ever seen a man excited to see food before?" Was his reply to the crowd.

Deciding that this would be the best time to intervene, Squall cleared his throat; "Ahem!" The pair turned their attention to him, as did everyone else in the room. Taking a few wide steps toward the pair so that he wouldn't have to raise his voice higher than necessary, he gave then another quick once over before stopping mere feet from the pair.

"My name is Squall Leonheart, I'm commander of this facility-"

"-Pleased ta meet cha' commander Leonheart!" Replied the man quickly, cutting the commander off, as he grabbed his gloved hand, and began shaking it enthusiastically. "I'm The Doctor, and this is-"

Pushing The Doctor out of the way, the woman with red simply crossed her arms while rolling her eyes in annoyment. "Hello, I'm Donna...Donna Noble." Donna said, holding her own hand out. Deciding there was no harm in it, he grabbed hold of hers and was surprised at the strength of her grip.

"So, Squall me good man, tell me, where is this place?" The Doctor suddenly asked. Shifting his gaze away from Donna, the young commander eyed the strange man in the pin-stripped suit querryingly.

"What?" A stunned Zell from behind him said, "Whadda' ya' mean, how can ya' not know where you are?!" Squall didn't like were this was going; he had a strange sinking feeling in his gut which was telling him that all of this was just simply wrong, but the fact remained; he had to find out why. However, watching the Doctor's expression change from joy and slight curiosity, to that of amusement only helped to worsen the feeling of apprehension.

"Sorry, we were flyin' blind before we landed; I don't have a clue," he replied. "...More fun that way!" With those seven words, Squall knew that this was not the kind of conversation that he neither wanted nor should be having in such an open place. Thus, with a single swift nod, he motioned for the other three SeeD's behind him to follow.

"Very well, we'll continue this conversation in my office."

~+~X~+~*~+~X~+~

All around him, people were walking, moving through the quad. From his bench, he could see the stairwell which led up to the pillar, which also served as the buildings only elevator as it rose through the heart of the complex. The young man shifted on the bench, letting the ends of his white over-coat fall onto the surface of the bench as he did so.

"Seifer..." Whispered a voice. He looked around the general area to see if one of the many people whom were milling about had called him. When he realized that no one was close enough to have done such a deed, he heaved a heavy sigh.

'Great...it's talking again.' He thought inwardly; reaching into his pocket, he grasped the small object which laid there. The slight hum that enveloped it gaining in intensity once again as it had done dozens of times before.

"...Find me...discover my name..." Whispered the voice once again. "...I'm still out there; i don't want to die. Not now, not yet! There's still too much I must do!" The voice pleaded as it had before. Seifer turned the small object around in his hand, examining it with tired interest as he had done a hundred times before.

After a few moments of lightly searching the small object for something new, he whispered back, "...Who are you?" The object remained silent. The thought of opening it had crossed his mind, and he just as quickly dismissed it, remembering what had happened the first time around. That light-

"HE'S HERE!" The voice shouted in his head. Lurching forward as a sudden jolt of pain seared through his head. Grabbing his temple with his free hand, a hoard of images flooded into his mind; many of which he didn't completely understand. Images of of fire, and ice, and wrath, and night; and through it all, there was a man. He was different in many of the images--over half a dozen different forms, but for some reason, he could feel they were all the same man, but why?

"I MUST BE REVIVED! HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS ME!"

"Why...?" he croaked out, as the pain suddenly began to increase in its intensity. His mind felt like it was on fire; so many things, flowing through it at once, he tried to scream out in pain, but his voice made no sound. The fire grew in intensity, so much so, that he could feel his GF, Diablos, screaming in pain as well.

"No! Let go, you're going to kill him!" His GF howled. Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the pain began to subside, and he began to descend into the darkness.

"BECAUSE!...BECAUSE WE ARE THE SAME!"

~+~X~+~*~+~X~+~

"Clear a path; medical emergency!" Shouted the stout girl whom had assumed point, as the group of six ran down the busy hallway; the sound of the groups hurried foot falls on the padding of the tiled floor thudded dully in The Doctor's ears, echoing the beating of his hearts as he once again checked the on the person in his care.

"No, no, no, no, no! His blood pressure's rising too fast," he shouted to the rest of the group as they made their way through to the medical wing. Shooting a look over the blond-haired man whom was struggled and half-seized in the arms of the four people who were carrying him, to Squall.

He asked; "Please tell me you have a cardio-regulator in your medical wing!" The commander shot him a steeled look as they passed by a large archway. He didn't pay it that much attention, but he did notice a slight curiosity; the horizon was filled only with clouds. He pushed it to the back of his mind for later, right now there were much more urgent matters to attend to.

"If you're talking about an auto-stimulator then yes, but it's an older model." The Doctor smirked in relief at the reply. When he'd made his first observations about these people, he'd seen a society that was both fairly advanced, but also young, as if they had been advancing too fast, and not everyone was able to keep up. Then he noticed how Donna was coming up fast behind him.

She asked; "Doctor, what the hell is wrong with him?" He looked back down at the seizing man while trying to keep up with the group, which by the way, is harder than it looks when you have to do it sideways while leaning.

Not taking his fingers off of the jugular, he said; "I'm not sure; his blood pressure is all over the place, and it looks like different areas of his brain are being over-loaded, while others are being suppressed!" It didn't seem right to say just that, but there wasn't really any other way to describe it, and he could feel Donna's confusion bearing down on him, as they made their way closer to the med-wing.

"What, like he's got more than one mind in his head?" She asked. Again, he was surprised; the time that she'd taken to work out what he said was becoming better and better everyday...for a human anyway. It was almost frightening, like she was becoming a part of him.

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his head, and straightening his posture out just enough to glance upwards, he replied; "No, more like he's already got one in there, and now theres a third mind that's trying to take over the others; there's a war raging on inside his head, and I can't tell which one's winning!" It intrigued him that something like this could happen, but in all of the centuries that he'd already lived, he couldn't exactly say that he'd seen this very often. Then he heard that same loud voice call out in front of them once again.

"We're here!" Shouted the girl whom he had found out whose name was Selfie. The glass doors to the medical wing slid quickly open, admitting them into a slightly cramped room. A few people rushed toward them as soon as they'd entered, including a woman wearing a white physicians jacket.

As the rest of the group put the blond man down, she took one look at him and kneeled down to the side opposite to the Doctor. "What happened!?" She asked as she went through all of the same diagnostic procedures as he had done.

"We don't know," said the other blond-haired man, this one in shorts and a short-sleeved jacket. "He just screamed out, and collapsed!" The other doctor shot a look up at him, then to Squall with a quarrying glance. He responded with a slight nod, and that seemed to be enough for her.

Turning to one of the staff behind her, she said; "Prep the auto-simulator, and get me a remedy-16!" Now it was the Doctor who was curious, but just as he was about to open his mouth, Donna beat him to it.

"Doctor, what's a "Remedy-16?" She whispered from his shoulder, but apparently, she wasn't quiet enough because the woman in the white coat shot her a curious look. The Doctor knew that there were now dozen or so questions flying through her head, but now wasn't the time to be asking them.

"You don't know?" Squall asked from behind them.

The Doctor rose to meet him; "Sorry, we're not from around here," he said with a slight grin forming. Just as he was about to continue, Donna beat him to it.

"We're from Barcelona." Said Donna, mirroring The Doctor's sly grin while still keeping a worried demeanor for the man below her. The commander looked her over, then returned to him.

"I've got it!" Shouted one of the aides as he came running through an open door. The glass vial in his hand sloshed with a purple-colored liquid that to the Doctor's surprise, looked as if it was vacuum-sealed within the container.

"Give it here!" Shouted the other Doctor. As the aide handed her the glass, she shot him a serious look. More serious than anything that anyone, not even Roses mother could ever muster, and softer than anything Martha gave him.

"I don't know who you are, but I could use you're help in holding him down while I get him stabilized!" She hurriedly stated, with her brow hardening as she tried to keep the young man below her from injuring himself. The Doctor immediately knelt down to the opposite side, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. Holding it up to the other mans mouth, he activated it, and his jaw slackened.

"Alright, I've got his mouth got it open, now hurry up, I can't keep this up for too long without risking injury!" The buzzing whine of his classic little tool filled his ears, even as the woman holding the looked at him questioningly. With a shake of her head, she pulled off the cap to the vile, which seemed to steam with a greenish gas, as she poured it down the young man's throat. The Doctor deactivated his screwdriver, and stood bye, watching as the seizing tremors began to lessen, and then altogether, disappear. He stared in amazement at how fast and effective the treatment was. Looking up at the other Doctor, he shook.

"Incredible! What was in that stuff?" The Doctor half-shouted with a high-pitched squeal. The entire group shot him one big curious look, as he simply grinned from ear to ear. Donna on the other hand was far more worried about something else.

"Doctor," She began. The two looked at her like she'd grown a third eye. Ignoring his warning stare, she nodded downward. "He's waking up." Looking down, he could see the young man struggling to breath, but his eyes were slowly edging open.

"Easy Seifer, you're bodies still recovering." Said the other Doctor. But his breath didn't ease up, instead, he practically choked as he tried to speak. The Doctor poked his head down further to get a better look at him.

He said; "Shh sh sh...easy does it there. Take your time..." But he didn't bother; as soon as the young man laid eyes on the Doctor, they shot wide open, and his breathing quickened faster than it seemingly had ever been before.

"Her! You...The Doctor!" He croaked out. "You...fire, ice...so ancient-RAGE!" The Doctor was taken aback by his cryptic statement, as was everyone else in the room, some however more than others. Shaking her head in disbelief Donna looked at her friend with a sense of ominous curiosity.

"Doctor, what's he talking-"

"Your back!" He shouted as soon as she moved within his field of vision. "Sah-Somethings there! Your back!" Donna's eyes became wide as saucers, and the Doctor shot her a worried glance.

Starting to panic, she reached behind herself, feeling her back and checking for something-anything. "How do ya' know that!" She asked; "What's there!?" He tried to say something, but the Doctor could tell; something was forcing to let her question go unanswered. Then he felt a heavy hand land on his shoulder.

"...Doctor..." Said a heavy, deep voice. He looked back to the sight of the worried, steel-grey eyes of the commander. He didn't say anything, but somehow Squall was able to get an answer from his ominous silence, or perhaps it was the worried look he carried in his eyes that told him what he needed to know, he wasn't sure. Then he felt a hand grab his tie.

"Siefer, let him go!" Shouted Selfie, but the Doctor held up deflecting hand as the young man struggled to bring his face closer to his.

"Compression...The Daleks!" He grunted out. Something akin to worry began to stir within him at the very mention of that name, but he pushed it back as he steadied himself.

"Take your time," he said in a calming tone. "Now, what about the Daleks?" Seifer struggled to onto his stare, but never the less, he still chocked out his words.

"Rassilon, and...Ultimecia..." A chill shot it's way up his spine at the names.

"No..." Whispered the Doctor. "It can't be-Rassilon's dead! How can you know that name?" He asked, but the young man below him didn't answer. In fact, he practically laughed at him, and his eyes were filled with a knowing amusement. Then his breathing became more ragged, and he began to cough.

"He's delirious! Doctor!" Shouted one of the aides, but Seifer didn't let go of him.

As the nurses hurried to pull him away from the Doctor, he looked back up, and once again locked sights. "Because--The night, the darkness, and...the big bad wolf." He choked out before finally collapsing.

~+~X~+~*~+~X~+~

"...No!" Shouted a woman in a long red and black dress, stumbling along the cobblestone walkway as she made her way. "Kursed SeeD's! You have not won yet!" She shouted weakly. It had been some time since she had collapsed. When she had, there had been two people there. One of them had spoken to her, and she instantly recognized her as Lady Edea, her former host, but the other remained a mystery to her.

"My very desire will be realized!" She exclaimed to the air. Her heel caught between two stones, and she lost her balance. Clutching the firm surface of a cold stone, she struggled to keep herself upright, gasping for breath. All of her magic was gone, so she was no longer able to heal herself, but that didn't matter. She had come here for a reason. This was the place where she had first arrived, though, she didn't quite remember how, or why. All that she knew was that this was the place which could heal her...if only she could find it.

"But what is it!" She asked herself aloud. True, she knew that there was something here that she could use, but what it might be was lost to her memories, or rather, lack there of. Then she saw it. A small, little object which seemed out of place. She couldn't quite see it, for some reason her eyes kept falling out of focus every time they tried to lock onto it.

"There..." Her voice was horse, but that didn't matter; finally, she was here. She stumbled to the object and realized what it was; a stone alter, abandoned in the middle of an old and long-since dead forest. The partially decayed, and half-petrified trees standing a ghostly vigil and a deadly warning to those whom dare to trespass. Reaching it's crisp stone face, she collapsed, kneeling over it's rough surface, she realized that all of it's features were still pristine; untouched by both nature and time, unlike the monuments surrounding it. A slight, comforting warmth spread through her as she wrapped her arms around the altar's surface.

Laying her head down she closed her eyes, and let the altar speak to her; "I'm here...my lady. Now you may rest, time is at the mercy of your kind."