After years of development, I've finally got this mini-series of fanfics off the ground. Please note that there may be some out of character issues, since it is the first story after all.
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or the To Aru franchise. Those belong to the BBC and Kazuma Kamachi, respectively.
It was a cold, dark night on the streets of Academy City's District Nineteen. District Nineteen was usually a place that the general populace avoided due to the run down and degrading state of the area, and the presence of the underworld factions. It was dangerous enough during the day.
It is on these streets that a boy, a student is seen running in terror.
"I don't believe it... That thing killed Aiko..." he said as kept running for his life.
The student kept running until he lost sight of what he was being pursued by and turned a corner into an alleyway to hide.
"I think I lost it..." the student said quietly to himself, breathing heavily.
A sudden noise coming from his right startled him into backing slowly out of the alley, shaking in pure terror.
The sound of a laser discharging is heard in the immediate area, and the student in question slumps forward into the ground, dead.
*Doctor Who 2008 Main Theme*
DAVID TENNANT
ALISON VIKTORAN
DOCTOR WHO
Chronicles of the Tenth Doctor
The Fateful Meeting
By Christopher Manson
Part One
It was a bright day, sunny day in Academy City's District Seven and in an alleyway, the a very familiar wheezing sound is heard. As the sound gets louder, a blue police box materializes.
After it fully materializes, the door opens, and stepping out of the box, was a handsome man with a tall, slim frame, finely boned hands and face, dark brown hair, pale skin and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a blue suit with red pinstripes; under the suit, he was wearing a shirt and a tie; he was also wearing slacks, and for his footwear, red trainers. He was also wearing a light brown overcoat to accompany his blue suit.
This man is the Doctor.
He stepped out of the alleyway and onto the sidewalk, taking in the sun's radiance. This was the first time he had been to Academy City in years. The last time the Doctor was here was in the year 2019, where he encountered a boy named Touma Kamijou, and worked together with him and the other inhabitants of the city against the Cybermen. And that occurred during the Doctor's seventh incarnation and his companion back then was a feisty young woman who had a knack for using of Nitro Nine.
Academy City was not like any other city he had been to on Earth. As the city's name suggests, it is a city of several schools and institutions of higher learning from kindergarten to university level that learn side-by-side along with the scientists who research on psychic powers and higher technology, the latter being one of the primary reasons for its establishment. It is the most advanced city on Earth for its time and its technology is said to be thirty years ahead of the rest of the world.
But yet it is also a place where science and magic collide on an almost daily basis, yet, the students -with the exception of a select few- do not know of the existence of magic, and its constant clashes with science. Even the stories of the city's founder and former administrator to be hard to believe.
However, the Doctor, in his many lifetimes of traveling and running away up to this point, has heard the stories that the city's former administrator, Aleister Crowley was a sorcerer himself. It was said that in nineteen forty-seven, a heavily injured Aleister Crowley was found by a being known as the Heaven Canceler in the English countryside and was nursed back to health by him. He later told Aleister Crowley of the far away land of Japan. The city was then founded by Aleister Crowley to do studies and research on the development of supernatural abilities.
The Doctor headed down the sidewalk taking in the brisk mid-to-late Winter morning air. He mainly came to Academy City to have a meeting with its Board of Directors and Judgment.
As he continued down the sidewalk toward the City Administration building in District One, he often saw girls buying chocolates for their crushes, as Valentine's Day was right around the corner. Though there were a few times that a few female university students would giggle, or say how handsome the Doctor is as he passed by. He even gave a smile of acknowledgment to their complements, making the female university students blush and giggle even more.
Though behind the facade of happiness, he was lonely. There has been an emptiness in his two hearts since he got separated from Rose Tyler during the Battle of Canary Wharf when the Cybermen and Daleks invaded and clashed in the Torchwood base in London.
Since then, he has felt a void in his life. So much so that he was even unable to see his most recent companion, Martha Jones, who herself had feelings for the Doctor, as being able to fill that void.
So many things had happened for him as of late. First, he and Martha were flung in the TARDIS, the Doctor's ship, to the year one hundred trillion A.D -the End of the Universe- due to his old friend Captain Jack Harkness clinging to the TARDIS' outside as it was flung forward through the time vortex.
When he, Martha and Jack got there, they helped the remnants of humanity find a new home in the twilight of the universe's life, but it was there that he discovered that his old enemy, a renegade Time Lord known only as The Master was alive, and he reawakened his old self. The Master was mortally wounded and he regenerated inside the TARDIS, and escaped, hoping to leave the Doctor, Martha and Jack for dead at the hands of mutated humans known as the Futurekind.
However, the Doctor managed to bring Martha, Jack and himself back to Earth in the year 2008, where they discovered, much to the Doctor's horror, that the Master had, not only become the newly-elected Prime Minister of Great Britain under the guise of "Harold Saxon", but got married as well to sell the deception. They also discovered that the Master turned the Doctor's TARDIS into a paradox machine and used it to allow the Toclaphane, the final evolution of the human race, to systematically eradicate one-tenth of the Earth's population; their own ancestors. The Doctor and Jack were held prisoner on the flying carrier the Valiant and Martha was forced to flee.
During the subsequent year, the Earth was laid waste by their rulers, the Toclafane and the Master. Martha's family and Jack were reduced to slavery on board the Valiant, and the Doctor had been artificially aged nine hundred years.
Martha eventually returned and, with the assistance of the remaining people of Earth, her family and Jack, freed the Doctor, returned him to his youthful self, and thwarted the Master's plans for a war against the universe, destroying the paradox machine and its effects from the year along with it.
However, Lucy Saxon shot the Master, her husband, afterward, and the Master refused to regenerate, despite the Doctor's pleas.
Afterward the Doctor burned the Master's body on a funeral pyre, Jack returned to his team in Torchwood Three, and Martha decided to stay on Earth to help her family and to continue her work to be a medical doctor. After seeing Martha off, the Doctor tried taking off, only for his TARDIS to merge with that of his fifth incarnation, leading to an awkward encounter, and the two helped prevent the TARDIS from destroying itself in a paradox.
After the encounter, the TARDIS collided with the spaceliner Titanic, forcing him to prevent the spaceliner from going on a collision course with Buckingham Palace. Among the people he saved was an employee named Mr. Copper who wished for a normal life on Earth after the disaster was narrowly averted.
And now here he was, in Academy City. He was called to the city by a member of its Board of Directors, he doesn't know what for yet.
When he eventually reached the City Administration building, he entered, and arrived at the front desk.
"Good morning. How can I help you, sir?" asked the lady.
"Good morning, I am Doctor John Smith and I'm here to attend the meeting between the Board of Directors and Judgment." the Doctor replied, showing his psychic paper.
"Ah, yes. Doctor Smith, you're ten minutes early. You'll find the meeting room on the fifth floor, first door to your right." the lady at the front desk confirmed and directed the Doctor toward one of the elevators.
It took about five minutes to get to the fifth floor, but when he got there, he managed to find the meeting room very easily.
Upon entering the room, he was greeted by the sight of the current Board of Directors, Judgment members and Anti-Skill personnel conversing among themselves and getting ready for the meeting. Among the members of Judgment are a few familiar faces.
One of them was Kuroko Shirai, now currently one of the leading operatives of Judgment's Tokiwadai branch. Now in her early twenties, she got rid of the twin tails and she looked and acted more mature. She was dressed in a female uniform used by one of the universities in the city, but her right sleeve still sports the Judgment armband.
With her, is Kazari Uiharu. Also now in her early twenties, Uiharu too had matured since the city's encounter with the Cybermen. While still wearing her trademark flower headband, she was wearing the female uniform of a university; and like Kuroko, she too is wearing the Judgment armband.
"Oi! Doctor!" came a familiar voice.
The Doctor turned his head to see Motoharu Tsuchimikado waiving at him wearing a business uniform; the type of uniform that member of the Board of Directors would wear. The Doctor smiled, realizing that Motoharu is a man who has eyes and ears in high places around the world. He headed over to Motoharu and replied,
"So, UNIT and Torchwood's respective archives have done well for you."
Motoharu shrugged, showing a sly smile on his face, "You know me, I always prefer to keep myself informed."
"To be honest, that's what I'm afraid of." the Doctor replied, half-jokingly. The information about himself was a double-edged sword at best. While much of the information may prove helpful if someone like UNIT is seeking him out for help, his information can also be dangerous, as there are things about his life that he prefers not to talk about.
"Anyway, what's been happening? Why did you call me here?" the Doctor asked Motoharu, who showed a serious look on his face. Despite his happy-go-lucky antics in the past, Motoharu was able to take things seriously when the situation called it.
He replied, "I'm not sure if it is true or the words of a lunatic, but apparently there have been strange reports coming in from Anti-Skill all over the city. The rest of the Board is freaking out over it. We should be getting the details in a bit."
The Doctor nodded, wanting to know more, and hoping that it was just some random low-level Esper or a Level Zero who decided to be a delinquent. The usual stuff that the city handles on a daily basis. However, the thought that it worried the Board of Directors to the point that Motoharu would go to the trouble of actually contacting him through UNIT worried the Doctor.
The two headed to their seats. On the way over, Kuroko noticed the newcomer with Motoharu.
"Huh, I wonder who that guy is?" She asked no one in particular.
"Hm? Did you say something, Shirai?" Kazari asked looking up from the file and USB flash drive given to her and toward Kuroko.
"Oh, it's just that man walking up the steps with Tsuchimikado. He seems familiar to me. I just don't know how or why." Kuroko replied to Kazari. "Tell me, Uiharu. Does he seem familiar to you?"
Kazari, looking down at the pair taking their seats, got a strange feeling of familiarity. Looking toward Kuroko, she replied, "A feeling of déjà vu? Like we have met him somewhere before? I'm getting that feeling too, now that you mention it."
Once everyone headed to their seats and sat down, Mii Konori, now the head of Judgment, stood at the podium. Next to her stood Aiho Yomikawa, now the head of Anti-Skill.
"Members of Judgment and Anti-Skill and members of the Board of Directors, thank you for attending this meeting on such short notice. At the request of Tsuchimikado Motoharu we have a member of UNIT attending our meeting." Mii began, causing a few murmurs among the people attending.
"Now, why is UNIT getting involved in a case like this?" Kuroko quietly asked Kazari, only to get a shrug of confusion in reply.
Mii continued, "Normally, we would not work with an outside organization. However, since the attack by the Cybermen a few years ago, we have been forced to accept the need for outside help when the situation demanded it. This meeting involves such a situation."
Mii turned to Aiho, who nodded in in return. Aiho's voice then boomed throughout the room, "Doctor John Smith, would you please stand up and come to the front?"
The Doctor stood up and headed to the podium to be greeted by Mii and Aiho. After shaking hands with them both, he turned to the rest of the atendees.
"Ello. I am Doctor John Smith, but I prefer to be called The Doctor. I have no idea why Tsuchimikado contacted me, so why don't we find why we're all here?" The Doctor said in a short speech to the rest of the attendees. Thing is, he did not realize that two words in that short speech would leave a select few in the room speechless.
The Doctor.
Those two words caused Kuroko and Kazari's respective hearts to skip a beat. Remembering what the Doctor looked like in his seventh incarnation, they were left with disbelief.
"Is he really the one who helped us against the Cybermen?" Kazari asked.
"That's... Impossible. Unless if he has the ability to change his face." Kuroko replied.
The sound of Aiho's voice brought them back to reality as the lights started to dim, "Yes, here is the case in question. Over the past few weeks, Anti-Skill has been getting reports of disappearances around the city. They initially started out in District Nineteen, so we thought it was the usual delinquents. However the incidents began to happen in other parts of the city and increasing in frequency. Districts Four, Fourteen, Six, Three, Eighteen, Twenty-three and Twenty-two have been having the most reports as of late. Students and teachers reported missing. Those who didn't vanish were found dead."
The screen behind Mii, Aiho and the Doctor turned on as Aiho said this. When the photos of the corpses were shown, there were numerous murmurs going around the room. There was at one point that a man in a business suit walked out the room trying to prevent himself from vomiting inside the place.
For the Doctor, the photos of the corpses were familiar to him. Among his observations of the photos, he noticed that there weren't any signs of blood or bullet casings. He then asked Mii,
"Miss Konori, have there been any autopsy reports?"
Mii replied, "As a matter of fact, yes. The autopsy reports state that the victims were killed by an energy based weapon."
Going by a gut instinct that she learned from the Cybermen case, Kuroko raised her hand and asked, "Was there anything else out of the ordinary?"
"Yes. In District Twenty-two, we found glass broken from the inside of the store windows." Aiho replied as the screen showed photos of the underground mall with shattered glass in front of the stores. Some of the shards were farther out in the main walkway.
"Looks like something got out... Something dangerous." The Doctor concluded. He has a feeling of what they could be, but he needed to confirm.
"Were there any eyewitnesses who survived and managed to get away?" he asked.
The answer from Aiho was grim, "The few eyewitnesses we saved talked of 'Store window dummies coming to life.' At first we thought they were suffering from post-traumatic stress from seeing their friends and loved ones killed or taken away. But now... We're not sure what to think."
This confirmed the Doctor's suspicions. Autons; androids in a plastic shell. There was one more piece to the puzzle that needed to be answered.
"Was there anything in the sky that was out of the ordinary prior to these disappearances?"
Kazari had the answer to that.
"Actually, while doing my homework on night of the twenty-first of last month, the sky lit up like a meteorite. I couldn't help but notice. I'm guessing it landed in District Nineteen. Could there be a connection?"
"Now that you mention it, yes. Because the disappearances in District Nineteen started happening a couple of nights after the event you spoke of. Doctor, what do you think?" Mii concurred, turning to the Doctor.
"My best guess is to tighten the security throughout the city, especially in the districts you designated. If you see any walking plastic dummies, take it out as best as you can. As for me, I'm going to need to know what's going on in District Nineteen." The Doctor instructed.
To Be Continued
Please give constructive criticism, if you have any. I'll be sure to improve on this.