Rose sighed, but nonetheless, followed after them. Didn't those aliens have any common sense? When something was outside and trying to kill you, you don't just go outside, you stay in your hiding spot until it leaves. That's how it's supposed to work.
That was not what Rose found. What she found was that they were on the Westminster Bridge, just next to the famous Thames River and Royal Air Force monument. It also happened to be night now, so apparently time speeds up when you're inside the TARDIS... Useful?
"We lost the signal, we got so close," the Doctor whined, leaning on the parapet of the giant bridge in defeat.
"We've moved," Rose pointed out, eyeing everything suspiciously. "Does it fly?"
"Disappears there and reappears here," the Doctor waved her off. "You wouldn't understand." Talk about rude.
"If we're somewhere else, what about that headless thing? It's still on the loose."
Virgo snapped her fingers at her. "That's the good part. The head melted with the body. Someone must have cleaned up the body's gue right about now."
"Are you going to witter on all night?" the Doctor said.
"I'll have to tell his mother," Rose narrowed her eyes at him. "Mickey. I'll have to tell his mother he's dead, and you just went and forgot him, again! You were right, you are aliens."
"I told you," Virgo rolled her eyes. "They have to keep Mickey alive to sustain the copy."
"Well the copy's failed, now didn't it?" Rose argued with her. "They can kill him now, no point in making another!"
"Look, if I did forget some kid called Mickey-" the Doctor began.
"Yeah, he's not a kid."
"It's because we're trying to save the life of every stupid ape blundering on top of this planet, all right?"
"All right!"
"Yes, it is!"
Honestly, what was the human's problem? They're just trying to save the world, did Rose not think that he and Virgo were on her side? Because they were, they really, honest to God, really were on the human's side of this situation.
"If you two are aliens, how comes you sound like you're from the North and South?" the human asked, just noticing that the Doctor had a northern accent and Virgo a southern one.
"Are we supposed to sound like we never heard of this language?" Virgo countered. "We can talk in our own language, if that's what you prefer."
Rose just shrugged. That was... a good point. She turned her gaze back to the blue box, the TARDIS it seemed to be called. "What's a police public call box?"
The Doctor smirked and leaned against the precious ship, happy to show off for the first time in... awhile, actually. Huh. He really should take up another companion pretty soon, not that there was anything wrong with Virgo, but he just... needed to show off to someone who's never seen these kinds of things before. The girl was getting unsurprised by everything.
"It's a telephone box from the 1950s," he explained to Rose. "It's a disguise."
"Okay," Rose nodded slowly. "And this... this living plastic, what's it got against us?"
"Against you?" Virgo blinked, thinking that it sounded absurd that the Autons would hate the humans. "What're you talking about? It's the opposite of that."
"You've got such a good planet," the Doctor added. "Lots of smoke and oil, plenty of toxins and dioxins in the air, prefect. Just what the Nestene Consciousness needs. Its food stock was destroyed in the war, all its protein planets rotted, so Earth, dinner!"
"Any way of stopping it?" the human asked, guessing that whatever a Nestene thing is it's the main control source for the living plastic.
In an answer to the question, the Doctor reached into the jacket, frowning when he couldn't find a tube inside of it. When he heard Virgo cough, he looked at her sharply and saw that she was wiggling the tube full of blue liquid inside with a smirk.
"Anti-plastic," Virgo said in amusement, the Doctor grumbling about something with the need to put deadlocks on his jacket.
"Anti-plastic," Rose sniggered at the Doctor's pout.
"Anti-plastic," the said man also said, snatching the tube out of Virgo's hand. "But first we've got to find it. How can you hide something that big in a city this small?"
"Hold on. Hide what?"
"The transmitter. The Consciousness is controlling every single piece of plastic, so it needs a transmitter to boost the signal."
"What's it look like?"
"Oh, I don't know," Virgo commented nonchalantly, staring up at the London Eye casually. "It's a huge circular, metal structure, perhaps like a wheel. It's pretty close to where we're standing."
"Must be completely invisible," the Doctor nodded, now seeing that Rose and Virgo were staring at something behind him. "What?" He turned around to face the London Eye, but he is just a bit thick. "What?"
Rose nodded to the Eye, but the Doctor is still oblivious at the transmitter right in front of him. "What? What is it? What?" He turns around one last time, finally seeing that the Wheel is the transmitter. "Oh. Fantastic!"
That's when the trio took off running across the bridge, people glancing up at the TARDIS, but not thinking that it could possibly be a bigger-on-the-inside time machine spaceship. It was safe where it was sitting.
"Think of it, plastic all over the world, every artificial thing waiting to come alive," the Doctor said. "The shop window dummies, the phones, the wires, the cables-"
"The breast implants," Rose added with a playful smirk, causing Virgo to eye her oddly.
"Still, we've found the transmitter," he continued talking, choosing to ignore the human's odd comment. "The Consciousness must be somewhere underneath."
"What about down here," Rose pointed to a large manhole near the Eye, just by the bridge's entrance at the bottom of the stairs.
"Looks good to me," the Doctor agreed, the trio taking off down the stairs and up to the manhole. When they were down, Virgo opened up the hatch with her own sonic screwdriver, putting the lid somewhere to be forgotten about. Down in the hole, there was a ladder that lead down to a grating floor with a blazing red light inside.
"Talk about creepy," Virgo commented as Rose went first to climb down the ladder.
When all three of them were off the ladder, safe and sound from dropping to their deaths, they took in their new surroundings, creepy surroundings. There was a giant vat in the corner with what Rose thought could be chunky lava and chains attached to the walls across it. The walls were made of red bricks and the stairs were to the left to go down to the vat.
"The Nestene Consciousness," the Doctor pointed to the giant vat. "That's it, inside the vat. A living plastic creature."
"Well then, tip your anti-plastic and let's go," Rose tapped the railings with her hands, eager to go back up to the surface, a bit afraid that the ceiling was going to fall down on her.
"We can't possibly kill it when we know there's a chance it'll surrender on its own, which is the smart thing to do," Virgo shook her head as the Doctor was the first to descend down the stairs to talk to the Nestene.
"I seek audience with the Nestene Consciousness under peaceful contract according to convention fifteen of the Shadow Proclamation," he said like a professional politician. In response, the Nestene's lava formed a face and screeched loudly. "Thank you. If I might have permission to approach?"
Rose stared at him as though he was crazy, until a specific guy catches the corner of her eye. "Oh, God! Mickey, it's me! It's okay! It's all right." She ran down the stairs and over to Mickey, where he was hiding behind some boxes and barrels.
He reached for her hands, uncontrollably shaking with fear. "That thing down there, the liquid. Rose, it can talk!"
"You're stinking," Rose grimaced. "Doctor, Virgo, they kept him alive. You were right!"
"Well that's good, otherwise that would have been really embarrassing," Virgo laughed as she stood next to the Doctor, wanting to help him talk to the Nestene using the power of the TARDIS translation matrix.
"Can we keep the domestics outside, thank you?" the Doctor rolled his eyes at them.
"Am I addressing the Consciousness?" Virgo spoke loudly to the vat. It screeched in response, so she smiled politely. "Thank you."
"If I might observe, you infiltrated this civilisation by means of warp shunt technology. So, may I suggest, with the greatest respect, that you shunt off?"
The Nestene didn't seem to like being told what to do by 'inferior' beings, so it screeched loudly, so loud that it'll probably make you deaf forever in both ears.
"Talk about constitutional rights all you want," Virgo invited, just daring the vat to argue some more. "But this is still an invasion. Look at these marvelous, beautiful humans who are only just learning to walk. They are capable of so much more than meets the eye, so on their behalf, just leave."
"Behind you!" Rose widened her eyes when she saw five plastic dummies stalk behind the two aliens, oblivious of what's behind them. Sadly, she shouted out the warning too late, as two dummies grabbed the Doctor, two for Virgo, and one of them grabbed the anti-plastic that was hiding in his leather jacket.
"Oh, great!" Virgo laughed sarcastically. "Thanks. This was just what we asked. Great job at surrendering!"
The Nestene just screeched once more, talking about how they were going to use the vial even if it did surrender its army across the world.
"That was just insurance," the Doctor told it, panicking slightly. This was not supposed to happen in the plan. "I wasn't going to use it. I was not attacking you. We're here to help. We're not your enemy, I swear, we're not. What do you mean?"
A light switched on that appeared to look white since the whole room was blazing red, but truth be told, it was just a normal light. A door slid open to reveal the TARDIS in the spotlight, rarely ever getting that chance.
"No, of course that's not a weapon!" Virgo looked horrified at the idea of the TARDIS being used to kill. "That's just a ship. His ship, I'm afraid I'm just along for the ride." She started to frown when the Nestene shrieked once more, talking about something that left a scar on both restrained aliens for life.
"That's not true," the Doctor argued. "I should know, we were there. We fought in the war. It wasn't our fault. I couldn't save your world! I couldn't save any of them!"
"What's it doing?" Rose asked, concerned at how angrily the Nestene was sounding and how upset both aliens looked.
"It's the TARDIS! The Nestene's identified its superior technology. It's terrified. It's going to the final phase. It's starting the invasion!"
"Get out of here, Rose!" Virgo told her, the human seeing fear in her eyes. "Don't worry about us. We'll be right behind you, just get you and your boyfriend out of here right now!"
Rose swallowed hard, but didn't make a move to take Mickey to go up the stairs (he was paralyzed with fear, he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon), but she did take out her phone to dial a loved one. "Mum?"
"Oh, there you are," Jackie said in fake happiness, making Rose smile just a tiny bit at something familiar. "I was just going to phone. You can get compensation. I said so. I've got this document thing off the police. Don't thank me."
"Where are you, Mum?" she asked quickly, unable to afford to sit through her mother's rambles.
"I'm in town!"
"No, go home! Just go home right now!"
"Darling, you're breaking up," Jackie lied with the shake of her head. "Listen, I'm just going to do a bit of late night shopping. I'll see you later. Ta-ra!" And with that, she hung up, unaware of the danger she was stepping right into.
"Mum!" Rose gasped, unable to believe that it would probably be the last time she heard Jackie's voice. "Mum!"
Jackie put her phone back into her purse, a little concerned at how Rose was suddenly telling her to do something with urgency in her voice. It was probably nothing, of course. It never was.
She walked into Queens Arcade to shop for some clothes to put in her bigger-on-the-inside-but-not-really closet.
Meanwhile, the Nestene's face was thrashing about violently as the four metal poles surrounding the vat lit up with blue energy bolts, making the aliens widen their eyes and struggle harder against their restrainers.
"It's transmitting the activation signal!" Virgo quickly told Rose. Might as well tell the human what was going to happen rather than have her die without knowing what was going on. Best to be prepared, right?
"It's the end of the world," Rose breathed, Mickey clutching onto her like his life depended on it.
In the same store as Jackie, Clive and his family of three were walking past many windows of shop window dummies, them talking about spreadsheets or something like that.
"There's no point creating a spreadsheet if you're going to spend summer money in winter months," he told his wife, his son not listening, as the conversation didn't concern him, nor did it strike him as interesting.
One of the dummies moved their head, in the window that Clive's family was about to pass, making them stop walking and took their attention to the dummy.
"Oh, my God!" the wife breathed, putting a hand on her chest and another on her son's shoulder. "I thought they were dummies. I nearly had a heart-attack."
Every dummy in every window were now moving, getting more attention from more customers on the sidelines. A few moments later, one of them smashed their arm into the glass, making their grand entrance to kill them all.
Jackie was just coming down the escalator, frowning at the dummies that were breaking the glass, making customers scream and run for their lives as more and more broke free from their glass prison.
"It's true," Clive shouted, his wife and son backing away from the dummies. "Everything I read, all the stories. It's all true!" He turned around to meet a dummy face-to-face. Its fingers dropped, like a lid, revealing two little poles. It shot Clive, the dummies making their first blood of the night.
The wife, now the widow, screamed in horror.
The Nestene was getting ridiculously violent now.
"Get out, Rose!" the Doctor shouted at her. "Just get out! Run!"
"The stairs have gone," Rose pointed over to the flaming staircase, the aliens just noticing that the room was starting to catch fire. The Autons proceeded to push the aliens into the Nestene, which would resolve in a painful death of burning.
Rose pulled Mickey up to his feet, grabbed his hand, and lead him over to the blue box, hoping that she could open it and figure out how to pilot. It seemed she would never know because the door was locked.
"I haven't got the key!" she huffed in defeat.
"We're going to die!" Mickey clutched to Rose once again, sliding down against the box. She frowned as she looked around the room for anything to help out the Doctor and Virgo, who were resisting the Autons pushing.
More dummies were shooting more innocent customers, causing Jackie to snap herself out of shock and run away, dropping her bag on the escalator for a way outside. She put herself in the crowd of people at the entrance, everyone pushing each other out of the way for the sake of their own survival.
When Jackie made it outside, it didn't look any safer. She saw some bodies lying on the road, dummies walking around and shooting anyone they saw, and people running for their lives or hiding behind fallen cars.
She ran over to a car that was flipped on its side, unaware of the three bride mannequins that were starting to move in their own window. One of them smashed through, causing Jackie to turn around and scream.
"No!" the Doctor struggled harder than ever, seeing that Virgo had moved forward an entire foot toward the vat, much closer than before to burning to death.
Rose stood up, taking the matter into her own hands, and she knew exactly what to do. First problem: getting Mickey off her. Easy. Push him away and run away.
"Just leave them!" Mickey called after her, too scared to even go after his girlfriend. "There's nothing you can do!"
Rose shook her head as she grabbed an axe from the emergency supply and hacked at the chains. "I've got no A levels, no job, no future. But I'll tell you what I have got: Jericho Street Junior School under 7s gymnastics team. I've got the bronze!"
She got the chain and wrapped her legs around it, preparing herself for a big swing. She ran off the ledge and swung into the air, managing to kick all the Autons to the floor, including the one that was holding the anti-plastic, which fell onto the Nestene, causing it to turn painfully blue.
"Rose!" the Doctor cheered as he caught her when she swung back over. Explosions left and right, which was the cue to start running. "Now we're in trouble."
Just when the brides were about to shoot Jackie, who was covering her face and squinting her eyes shut for preparation of death, they collapsed onto the concrete. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at the 'corpses' before her, then shakingly stood up, seeing other people coming out from their hiding places, some of them crying from the devastation.
The trio ran up the other set of stairs to get to the TARDIS, Mickey clutching it tightly, needing something to hold onto if he was going to die. The Doctor unlocked the door, pushed the human inside, then everyone else got in. Virgo pulled a lever to dematerialize the box to a safe place away from the Nestene's lair.
The blue box materialized somewhere close by the Powell Estate. Mickey was the first one out, looking at the box in horror and running/tripping into a lone pallet, shaken by the events. Rose calmy walked out with her phone in her hand, calling her mother to see if she was still alive.
"Rose, Rose, don't go out of the house!" Jackie sighed in relief, just as thankful that Rose was alive as vice versa. "It's not safe. There were these things, and they were shooting! And they-" Rose had hung up on her. "Hello? Hello?"
The teenager nearly laughed when she finally saw Mickey, but pitied him a bit. It probably happened too fast for him to wrap his head around anything. She was like that earlier after finding out the TARDIS was a bigger-on-the-inside spaceship, so she understood what was going through his head.
The Doctor in the doorway of the box, Virgo not with him because she told him she had to check on something important. He couldn't guess what she needed to check in a million years, and she wasn't saying what it was, so he just let her go do it.
"A fat lot of good you were," Rose teased him.
"Nestene Consciousness?" he snapped his fingers with a smirk. "Easy."
"You were useless in there. You and Virgo'd be dead if it wasn't for me."
"Yes, we would," the Doctor's expression softened at that truth. "Thank you. Right then." He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "We'll be off, unless, er... I don't know... you could come with us. This box isn't just a London hopper, you know. It goes anywhere in the universe, free of charge."
"Don't," Mickey clung to Rose's leg. "They're aliens. They're things."
"He's not invited," the Doctor nodded to him, not liking how he said aliens, as if it was the most terrible thing in the universe. "What do you think? You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere."
"Is it always this dangerous?" Rose asked him, starting to smile at the thought of it.
"Yeah," he nodded in excitement.
Mickey clung even tighter to her, making her realize something. She nearly had both him and her mother killed in the same night, how can she abandon them now? If it was a time machine, then, yeah, that would be a completely different story because she could be back here in 2-5 minutes and check up on them, but it wasn't.
"Yeah, I can't," she sighed, hating that she was denying this opportunity. "I can't. I've, er, I've got to go and find my mum and someone's got to look after this stupid lump, so..."
"Okay," the Doctor nodded, but it was clear as day that he, too, was disappointed. "See you around." He stood there for a few more moments, letting Rose think about her decision, before stepping back inside the box and making the TARDIS disappear.
The humans watched the TARDIS dematerialize right in front of them, a small gust of wind blowing in their faces.
"Come on, let's go," Rose said sadly as she helped Mickey up to his feet. "Come on. Come on."
They walked three steps before the TARDIS materialized once more, Virgo's head sticking out from the doors.
"Are you sure he didn't mention it was a time machine as well?" she asked, smiling when she saw Rose's eyes brighten up.
The said girl turned back to Mickey, "Thanks."
"For what?" he frowned.
"Exactly," Rose kissed his cheek before turning around and running to the TARDIS, closing the door behind her.
A/N: So, I just realized that there aren't any scene breakers when I had put them in Docs and for some reason when I'm trying to add them, it doesn't show up on the thing, so apologies if you got confused when there was a scene change. Thank you for following and reviewing, it is very much appreciated :) Thank you for reading!