Author's Note: Hello, again, everyone! Long time no write!
Hope you like Doctor #8! TONS of him in this story!
(Except... I guess he only actually gets into the story in Chapter 2. Oops.)
Before you get confused, the Seo in this story is different from the one in the other stories (although you'll see how they are connected by the end of the story). This is the Seo from Shockwave Vampires and Dux Bellorum, which are published on Amazon Kindle and Fictionpress. I like to think of her as Seo Snr, versus the other, who is Seo Jr.
Mostly, this story will be a crossover between Shockwave Vampires and Doctor Who. There is a little bit of Buffy in there, too, though - you'll notice this more later on.
It's absolutely a prequel to my series, Adventures of a Line Hopper.
Enjoy!
Once upon a time, there lived a powerful magician who came from a mystical alien race. He had left a home planet filled with civil war and chaos, and had gone out into the universe hoping to find a better way of life. But it hadn't quite happened that way.
The magician had made a mistake.
An innocent man was wronged. Monsters were unleashed. Sacred trusts were broken. And the woman he loved…
Yes.
He'd made so many mistakes. Terrible… horrible mistakes.
"But falling in love," said the magician, "that was never a mistake. I wouldn't take it back. Not for the whole universe."
He leaned over and took his daughter's left hand in his. Their hands shone, as they touched.
"Your mother," he told her, "was so beautiful. So intelligent." He shared the memory with her, the psychic images threading through their fingers. "Can you see?"
The little girl nodded.
"I loved her with more than just my heart," said the magician. "I loved her with my soul. She was of my right hand — just as you are, now."
The little girl frowned, confused. But she let him take her other hand in his.
"This is the power of my people," said the magician. "The left hand is for sharing. The right is for sacrifice." Their right hands glowed, as well, as the magician accessed his great power. "I share my memories with you — as I do with many others — with the power of my left hand. But my soul is the gift I share for those of my right hand. I give you a part of myself, as a sacrifice. For you are my daughter, and someday, all that is mine will be yours."
The little girl was very young. She had never met another mystical alien besides her father. She did not understand the power of the right hand. But she felt his love for her, inside that transfer of power.
When they were done, the magician felt a little weaker, for his sacrifice. But he saw the face of his beloved daughter, and it gave him strength.
"The power of the right hand is sacred," the magician warned her. "It is a bond between you and another person. It is a sacrifice… a part of yourself that you can never take back." He leaned in closer to her. "If you share that power with the wrong person, then your soul will be lost. You will be lost." He tucked some hair behind her ear. "I cannot bear to see you lost like that."
The little girl looked down at her right hand.
"Will people want me to share it?" asked the little girl.
The magician laughed. "Everyone will," he said. "Only one race is too aloof to want it — but given the chance, they would hunt you down and destroy you, for having it."
The magician took her shoulders in his hands. Looked deep into her eyes.
"Beware the Time Lords," he told her. "Or they will be your death, some day."
He took her tiny right hand, and curled it into a fist.
The little girl felt as if she carried the magic of the universe, in that fist.
"There are only three things I truly fear, in this universe," said the magician. "The Time Lords are one of them. My own people — should they ever stop fighting for long enough to track me down — are the other."
He kissed the top of her head, and thought this concluded the matter.
But the little girl caught his arm. "And the third thing?"
"Third?"
"You said three things frightened you," said the little girl. "But you only told me two."
"Ah." The magician fell silent, for a long moment. A terrible look spread across his face. A terrible fear sprung up in his eyes. "The third thing I fear… more than anything else in the whole universe… is that my past mistakes will come back to haunt me."
And they did.
It was after the little girl had been tucked into bed, just as she was drifting off to sleep. She heard things breaking, downstairs. The little girl's eyes popped open.
There was more breaking.
The splintering of wood. The shattering of glass. The sounds of punches and hits and weapons.
Then… screaming.
The little girl hid under the covers. She decided this was just a nightmare, and she had to wake up. She heard a blood curling shriek, and squeezed her eyes shut. Knew her daddy would wake her up, any time, and rub her back and tell her that he'd made the nightmare go away.
By the time the screaming stopped, the girl was sobbing. Still tucked under the covers, as far as she could go. Waiting for her daddy to come in and tell her everything was all right.
The door to her bedroom opened.
The girl heard a man's footsteps, as he entered her room.
"Daddy?" the girl said, peeking out from her covers.
The man was not her daddy.
He was tall, his skin too pale, his eyes cold black orbs, brown hair slicked back and covered in specks of silvery-colored blood… and droplets of the same silver blood dripped from his canines.
"Forget your daddy," said the man. He took out a handkerchief, and wiped his mouth. "You'll never see that monster again."
He lunged forwards. Grabbed her by her right wrist.
"From now on," he said, "you're mine."
That was the end of the fairytale, for the little girl. All that was left, after that… was the nightmare.
Sil, entrepreneurial space slug of Thoros Beta, was concluding the tour for his latest potential customer, Miss Christina DeVoldaq.
Or, rather, he was concluding talking to her, while a slave team dragged him around the factory on a cushion-clad sedan, pausing only to bathe his slimy skin in water.
"...which, of course, leads to the final product," said Sil, smacking one of his bearers so they'd drag him forwards. "The weaponized chronon slurry. A crucial component for any effective temporal weaponry."
"Because if the Daleks and the Time Lords are about to start a Time War," said Christina, "who are we not to profit from it?"
"Precisely," Sil agreed.
Christina looked down at the labor pits, one last time. Sil couldn't help but admire her. Spotless business suit, designer briefcase, blond hair in a perfect bun — and her eyes!
Ice cold. Impartial.
Brilliant.
"I assume this isn't the same tour you gave the Gallifreyan representatives, before they signed up with you?" Christina asked.
"I did not think the Time Lords would appreciate the entrepreneurial genius of my torture camps and labor pits," Sil admitted. "Some Time Lords can be… difficult about that." His voice grew bitter — as he remembered all the times that meddling Doctor had subverted his plans.
Christina raised an eyebrow at him. "You think they'd stop buying from you, if they learned the truth? They seem pretty desperate."
Sil chuckled. "Yes, well… I wasn't exactly their first choice. But with all their other suppliers going bankrupt…"
"…you can gouge Gallifrey for every last penny they've got. I know." Christina's eyes shone bright, as she headed towards the door that led away from the labor pits and back to Sil's office.
Sil smacked one of his bearers on the head, so they'd lift him up and drag him after her.
"Of course, your exploitation of Gallifrey is not why I contacted you, Mr. Sil," said Christina. "Exploiting Gallifrey is easy. Everyone's doing it. It's your exploitation of the Daleks that I find… quite ingenious."
Sil chuckled, fanning himself, as they entered his office. "You flatter me, Miss DeValdaq."
Christina went over to his desk and opened her briefcase. Took out a copy of their contract. "Yes," she muttered. "A brilliant strategy. You predict which planets the Daleks will want to mine out, next — then send in a spaceship, to raid any art or valuables from those planets, ahead of time — and wait until the Daleks have wiped out all life on the planet's surface, so you can sell the now-rare items at an impressive profit. Genius."
"Ah, but you, Miss DeValdaq," said Sil, with a glare at his bearers that made them realize they were supposed to be covering him in water, right now, "are the true genius. Never before have I considered that the populations of those planets might also have value."
Christina gave a dark laugh.
"What, for the Daleks, is target practice," said Christina, "I call… dinner." She flipped through the contract. "My requirements shouldn't be too difficult or expensive to achieve. I've given you the technology to abduct the population of a whole planet. And you have more than enough ships at your disposal. I take it you have already installed the technology I supplied into the ships?"
"Yes, yes," said Sil. He took out a pen. "Everything is ready, just as soon as you sign the contract. We can get started, immediately." He paused, hesitating. "I take it… you don't need us to extract the blood from the populations, before we deliver them to you?"
Christina glanced around, as if checking the hidden corners of the room for spying Time Lords. Then, satisfied, she leaned in.
"I'll be honest with you, Sil," Christina whispered. "I don't just drink blood; I drink time and probability. If my victims aren't alive… they're tasteless. It's like eating sand."
Something predatory shone in her eyes.
Sil nodded, slowly. "I imagine that isn't terribly popular with the powers on Gallifrey."
Christina nodded. "That's why I came to you," she said. "My friends, the Visconti Brothers, recommended you. They said you were extremely… discreet."
The Visconti Brothers.
Yes, Sil remembered them. Some terrorist organization cooking up temporal disasters, on Earth, to promote their radical agenda. And since they had money to pay, and Sil had weaponized chronons to spare…
"Your secret is safe with me," Sil promised.
Christina gave a grateful nod, then took the pen from him and signed the contract.
As she did, Sil gave the command for his ships to depart and abduct the populations that Christina had just paid for.
Christina's smile widened, as the ships left.
"Now, in terms of your final payment…" Sil prompted.
Christina closed her briefcase. "I'll be happy to cut you a check — once I've had a bite to eat." She spun around, to face the door. "I promise to pay for any personnel I choose to… remove from your service."
Sil gurgled his laughter. "I can always find more! Cheap labor is easy to come by."
Christina nodded, as she headed out of the room.
Then paused, in the doorway. "Oh, I nearly forgot." She turned, a sudden gleam in her eye. "The Nightmare Ring."
Sil froze.
Then pretended he had no idea what she was talking about. "Nightmare… ring? Is that a piece of jewelry? A trinket for your fine ladyship's hand?"
"It's a weapon," said Christina. "A dangerous Olitzitz weapon. But you knew that. Didn't you… Sil?" She turned around. "Have a nice lunch."
And left.
Sil frowned, deeply.
Then turned to the nearest monitor, and called up his boss. "This… Christina DeVoldaq," Sil told him, when the call went through. "I'm starting to suspect that she has some ulterior motive. She knows about the Nightmare Ring."
Christina… although that wasn't really her name… entered the restrooms acting just as cold and calculated as before. The moment she left the view of the cameras, however, she dropped the act.
"I knew the Nightmare Ring was here," she muttered. "Just knew it!" She clicked open her briefcase, then opened up a secret compartment in the back, and removed three network hackers, a time-space conversion unit, and the secret radio that connected her with the slave workers down in the labor pit.
She attached the network hackers to the wall, connected them to the time-space converter, and set them to work in the background. She switched on the radio. "Seo to slave pit. In position for phase two."
A moment of silence. Then, "We're in position, down here. Ready to release recombined tri-chronite particles."
Seo grinned. She'd spent the last week down in that slave pit, secretly changing around all the temporal processing equipment.
"Release," Seo said.
They did.
The whole building shook. The power flickered. The security hackers bleeped at her, the space-time converter whirred, and the network security… broke down.
"Just like cracking a safe," said Seo, as she placed her hand on the space-time converter, and began using the network to gain access to all assets, bank accounts, and long-term loans. "Except safes are so much more satisfying to crack in four dimensions."
"She's a thief?!" Sil cried, when his boss told him the truth.
Why hadn't this woman been flagged, the second she made contact with them?! It was as if someone had infiltrated his team of background checkers, and changed the files.
But Sil's boss had the unaltered files.
And the so-called 'Christina' actually matched the appearance of a notorious criminal from planet Earth, going by the name "Seosyrae."
"Speciality: corporate espionage," Sil's boss said, "sabotage, theft, and timeline corruption for the purposes of turning a profit." He turned a page in the file. "It appears her latest capers have all targeted companies exploiting the upcoming Time War. She even shut down the Time War Suppliers Cartel."
"She's the reason everyone else has been going bankrupt?!" Sil cried.
Sil tried to call up the ships he'd sent out, to recall them.
But something in the technology he'd installed, in these ships, interfered with his signal. They wouldn't respond. They'd just keep going to their original targets, to abduct those populations and dump them where they'd been instructed.
Sil tried calling the galactic police. But they put him on hold.
Finally, desperate, he made one last call.
He got through, this time, and began to tell them everything — but soon, he was cut off, as the whole building shook and the lights began to flicker. All Sil's communications connections shut down.
Alarms began to blaze, as the slave workers released themselves from the labor pits and torture camps, and began to swarm. All network security shut itself down. The stock price began to plummet. Bank accounts began to plunge. Any financial security the company had… took a drastic and sudden nosedive.
Even his bearers ran away.
Sil began to panic. His last call had got through… but what if they didn't come? He to do something! Fix this! But how?
Frustrated, he slammed a fist down on his computer.
"That's not going to help," came a voice from the door.
Sil turned, to find Christina — except that wasn't really her name — now standing in the doorframe, smiling.
"You!" Sil cried.
Seo waved. "Yes, me! Hello! Thanks for the money. Oh, and thanks for helping evacuate all those innocent people, before the Daleks attacked their planets. That was an unexpected bonus."
Sil knew his only hope was to stall her, until his help arrived. His last call had gotten through. And he had to hope the recipients were as desperate as they seemed.
If Seo was in the mood to gloat…
"What have you done?!" Sil shouted.
"Since I first arrived here, undercover, two months ago?" Seo counted off the items on her fingers. "Drained your profits, sold off your assets, took out loans in your name that you can't hope to pay back, freed all your slave workers — oh, and, by the way, I paid for all the technology you installed on those ships by draining your personal bank account, Sil."
"What?!"
"It's all about the money," said Seo. "That's what counts. Oh, and — don't bother reporting me to Earth authorities. They found out about your little arrangement with the Visconti Brothers. They're perfectly happy to let me shut you down and take all your money. In fact, Earth wants to give you the death penalty..." Seo shrugged. "But there's no profit, for me, if I kill you. So I'm fine, either way."
Sil wondered what was taking his help so long to arrive. Shouldn't they be here by now?
"What you're doing is illegal!" Sil said. "Even if Earth won't prosecute, it's still against galactic law. I've already called the galactic police…"
"And I bet you didn't get through," Seo guessed. She shrugged. "I've paid the galactic police very handsomely to… look the other way… when I deal with companies exploiting the Time War. Trust me, Sil — I do this kind of thing a lot."
Sil was now starting to get angry that his relief wasn't here, yet. He was running out of ideas for how to drag this conversation out.
"But, as much as I love explaining to sadistic, immoral, and corrupt corporate owners why I've just destroyed their livelihood," Seo said, "I've got a job to do, here. That's why I came back. Turns out… your personal computer is the only one with the data I need."
She leapt forwards, before Sil even knew what was happening. Landed in front of Sil's personal computer, and attached the time-space converter to it. The converter bleeped, the computer switched on, and Seo easily hacked into the files.
"The Nightmare Ring," Seo breathed, as she found it. "At last."
Sil stared at her. "That was all you wanted?!" he cried. "That's why you did all of this? Not for money or to save people — just for that weapon?!"
"Let's just say… I have a history with that weapon," said Seo. "I know what it can do for me. And I'm planning to use it."
Sil kept staring, a moment longer. Then, he began to laugh.
And laugh!
In fact, he laughed so hard, he almost fell off of his sedan.
"What's so funny about…?" Seo began. Then she stopped. Because she found out, for herself.
"I called the Time Lords," said Sil, "and told them I'd caught the woman who's been sabotaging their war effort. I'm sure they've been looking for you for years."
Seo's hands twitched, uneasily. He was right, of course.
"I thought they'd arrive here and destroy you," Sil continued. "But if you want the Nightmare Ring that much… I shouldn't have bothered."
Seo stared at the screen, which told her what had happened to the Nightmare Ring.
"You sold it on," Seo breathed, "to…" She turned back to him, growing horror on her face. "You're insane!"
Sil laughed even harder.
In the background, Seo could hear TARDISes materializing. She didn't doubt that Gallifrey would have her head for shutting down yet another of their temporal suppliers. She had to get out of there, fast.
She downloaded the data she needed. Hid her tracks on the computer.
Then turned. And ran.
"You're already dead!" Sil shouted after her. "You don't know it, but you're dead!"
Seo ran until she was in range, then activated her mini-teleporter — and, in a flash, found herself back on her ship. She blasted off, eager to get away from that planet, that time, and the unwelcome Time Lord company her presence was already attracting.
When she was away, she transferred the data from Sil onto her ship's computer.
And stared at it, once again. A grim hopelessness on her face.
"He's right," Seo said. "If I go get the Nightmare Ring, I'm dead. And if I don't… a woman I don't know, whom I have no connection to… will die — causing the collapse of everything I've been working towards."
She stood a long time, just staring at the data.
Weighing it all in her mind. Her life… versus her cause.
"Seo," she said to herself, as she called up the holograms she needed to accelerate her ship, "you really are a suicidal idiot, sometimes."
And headed towards certain death.
"...lost her?!" shouted Cardinal Ollistra, who had been placed on Gallifrey's War Council, as soon as it had become clear that war was inevitable. "She's a member of a lesser race, using a ship that runs on antiquated temporal technology! How could you possibly have lost her?"
The Time Lords had spread out across the ruins of Sil's complex, trying to find a trace of the thief, and salvage anything they could.
"I… don't know, Cardinal," one of her subordinates admitted. "But we can find no hint of a temporal trace for her ship." He checked the scan again. Shook his head. "It's as if someone else is… obscuring it. Someone with much more sophisticated technology than she has."
"The Daleks?" Cardinal Ollistra asked. It would make sense, given Seo's current obsession with sabotaging Gallifrey's armament efforts.
"I don't know," the underling said.
In the meantime, Narvin, Coordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency, had crept over to Sil's personal computer. Their thief had covered her tracks on the computer, of course… but Narvin was second-to-none at decryption and uncovering hidden computer trails.
"Coordinator Narvin," Cardinal Ollistra demanded, "on behalf of the War Council of Gallifrey, I command you to assist…"
"With respect, Cardinal," Narvin replied, not missing a beat in his decryption, "Gallifrey is not at war, yet. And I didn't come along to help you catch a thief. There are far, far bigger things in motion, here, than you can possibly imagine."
The file concerning the Nightmare Ring flashed up onto the monitor.
Narvin stared at it. "The Nightmare Ring," he muttered. "At last." Skimmed through the rest of the file. Frowned. "That's a problem."
"Madam Cardinal," Sil said to Ollistra. "Your lovely, grand wonderfulness! I am just a humble businessman, trying to do my part for Gallifrey. I would be delighted to continue, if you would only protect me from the terrible Earth people, and advance me the money to restart…"
"I think not," said Narvin, turning to Sil. "As Coordinator of the CIA, I am placing you, Sil of Thoros Beta, under arrest for selling the Nightmare Ring weapon to our enemies."
Sil found himself surrounded by staser-wielding Time Lords. He looked around himself, bewildered.
Cardinal Ollistra eyed Narvin, suspiciously. "Nightmare Ring?"
Narvin wiped the files from Sil's computer. "CIA business, Cardinal." He turned back to his own TARDIS. "But I think it's business I ought to see to, personally."
Cardinal Ollistra watched as he raced inside his ship, and it dematerialized.
Yes, Narvin was certainly up to something. And Ollistra didn't like it one bit.
She'd be having a word with the Lady President about this.