The Tardis jerked to the side, sending Rose and Mickey plummeting to the grated floor, Rose leaping up almost immediately, trying to figure out what was wrong with the Tardis.
The lights began to flicker, but not in the way the normally did, not in the way they did when the Tardis was communicating with her occupants. No, this was more like the flickering of a light bulb that was about to go out. But the Tardis couldn't go out, could she?
Rose was proven wrong almost moments later, when, upon landing, the lights of the Tardis died, and her sister's presence was torn painfully from her mind.
"No!" Rose screamed, the tardis-girl desperately trying to reach out to the Tardis with her mind, only to find nothing.
"Rose? What's going on?" Mickey asked, having not realized what had happened yet.
"She's dead," Rose whispered brokenly. "The last Tardis of Gallifrey, and she's dead."
But there was something more to it, something was wrong. The Tardis fed off the energy of the universe, so it should have been impossible for her to die.
Unless, no. It couldn't be.
Mickey opened the Tardis doors, peaking his head out. "Hey, look. We're in London."
"But not our London," Rose said softly. "We aren't in our universe anymore. Mickey, come back inside."
"Like a parallel universe?" Mickey asked, still lingering in the Tardis doorway. "Maybe my gran is still alive. Things like that happen in parallel universes."
"No, Mickey. We don't belong here."
Rose could sense it. She didn't have a place here, she could feel this very universe rejecting her presence.
But the Tardis was dead, and Rose had no way of returning to her proper universe. Or did she?
A dim glow caught Rose's eye, and she lifted the grate, reaching down and picking up the dimly growing crystal chunk.
At her touch, Rose's connection with the Tardis returned to her mind, though it was very weak.
Rose concentrated, trying to force some of her own Tardis powers into her sister, the crystal glowing brighter at Rose's efforts.
"It'll take her a couple of hours to recharge," Rose said. "But we'll be fine until then, Mickey. Mickey?" But the boy was gone, and Rose had a sinking feeling that she knew where he was.
Tucking the Tardis crystal securely in her breast pocket, Rose left the Tardis, only to be confronted by a very familiar face speaking on a large screen. Rose paid no attention to his words, only focusing on the face of Pete Tyler, her father.
No, not her father, Rose told herself seriously. Her father was dead.
Rose pulled out her phone, surprised to see she had automatically connected to this earth's network, and typed in Pete's name, surprised at the results. It seemed Pete had married Jackie in this universe as well, but they had no daughter. Pete was alive and well, and ran a rather successful business under the name of Vitex, which promoted health drinks.
Another tidbit of information Rose discovered was that Jackie Tyler's birthday was today, and there was a large party being thrown for her at the Tyler home.
"Go," the Tardis whispered weakly in Rose's mind.
At her sister's urging, Rose returned to the Tardis, searching manually through the wardrobe room for a dress.
Awkwardly zipping up the dark purple cocktail dress and picking up a pair of heels, Rose slipped out of the dark Tardis, and hailed a cab.
Upon arriving at the Tyler home, Rose handed the cab driver the correct amount of pounds, sighing in relief when he accepted them without question.
At the door, Rose flashed her psychic paper at the man armed with a clipboard and guest list, who took it, carefully examining it.
"Your name must have slipped off my list, Miss Wolfe," the man apologized.
Rose waved off the apology, accepting her psychic paper back, knowing that the man was not at fault. She wasn't really supposed to be here, but there were already enough people in the ballroom to mask her presence.
Rose lingered on the edges of the crowd, noticing, with some suspicion, the pods everyone wore in their ears. They most certainly did not have those on her earth, and Rose had a bad feeling about them.
Rose looked up as her not-mother descended the entered the ballroom, smiling at her guests as she accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waiter.
And then all hell broke loose.
Metal men burst into the room, and Rose recognized them from the information the Tardis had given her. Cybermen, old enemies of the Doctor. But these were different, they weren't from her universe, they belonged in this one.
The cybermen quickly killed the President of Great Britian, whom Rose recognized from eavesdropping on the conversations of the various guests of Jackie Tyler.
Recognizing the danger she was in, Rose slipped out of the ballroom through a side door, stepping out onto the lawn. Pete Tyler appeared moments later, breathing heavy.
"You got out too?" He asked.
"What's going on in there?" Rose asked her not-father.
Pete shook his head. "They, the machines, are rounding everyone up for upgrading. They want to turn us into monsters like them."
"They're called cybermen," Rose said absentmindedly, slipping out of her heels. It would be better to be barefoot than break an ankle by running in heels.
"And who are you to know this? I don't recognize you, but you were at the party."
"Oh, Pete," Rose laughed. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you. My name is Rose, though."
"Rose!"
"Mickey!" Rose called to the dark skinned boy, who came running up with two other boys, one who looked identical to Mickey. His parallel universe counterpart, Rose concluded.
The clanking of metal alerted them to the presence of the cybermen, and all five people froze. Not-Mickey and the other boy tried to shoot the cybermen, but their guns proved ineffective as the cybermen surrounded the group.
Rose stepped forward, trying to project some of the confidence the Doctor had always seemed to have.
"Alright, I surrender. Take me away for upgrading."
"You are rogue elements. You are to perish under maximum deletion."
Well, that couldn't be good.
Gold descended over Rose's eyes, and she thrust out her hand, tendrils of energy shooting out from her hand, the cybermen disintegrating at the touch of the energy, turning into a pile of golden dust, which blew away in the breeze. Rose dimly felt the approval of the Tardis, stemming from the crystal securely tucked inside her pocket.
A van rolled up on the driveway, distracting the others, who had been staring wide-eyed, and with no little amount of suspicion, at Rose.
"Get in!" The woman at the wheel called to the group.
Rose followed Mickey, not-Mickey, and the other boy, Pete hesitating for a moment. "Jackie!" He protested.
"Jackie's dead. And you will be too if you don't come on!" Rose told him forcefully.
Safe in the van, Rose pulls out the Tardis crystal, examining it with a thoughtful eye. "Should be ready in a couple of hours," Rose told Mickey, who was staring at her.
Rose returned the crystal to her pocket, patting it once before lowering her hand, the weight of the stares of the four male occupants in the van finally settling on her.
"What?"
"How did you do that?" Mickey exclaimed.
"Do what?" Rose asked, before remembering that she was the only one aware of her new powers. "Oh, the energy. It wasn't me, it was the Tardis channeling her power through me," Rose lied. It had most certainly been her, but she had been wielding the power of a Tardis. Not that was hard anymore, considering she was mostly Tardis.
The other boy from this universe, Jake, as he introduced himself to Rose and Pete, stared distrustfully at the head of Vitex. "Why should we trust him? He's all buddy-buddy with Lumic!"
"Only for information!" Pete protested, before rattling off information about the transmissions of Gemini, who, as it turned out, was in fact Pete Tyler. "I thought I was getting through to Secret Service. But what do I get instead? Scooby Do and his gang!"
Mickey then proudly proclaimed that Rickey, his counterpart of this universe, was London's Most Wanted. And he was, but only for parking tickets. Upon learning this, Mickey seemed to deflate.
"What are they all doing?" Mickey asked upon seeing the people marching through the streets.
"It's the earpods," Rose answered grimly. "They're controlling everyone."
"Lumic," Pete growled.
"Could we just remove the earpods?" Rickey asked.
Rose shook her head, already knowing the answer. "Bad idea. The brain wouldn't be able to handle it."
Rickey sighed in defeat.
"So what do we do?" Jake asked, his tone challenging.
"Lumic's base is at Battersea," Pete interjected.
"So we split up and get out of the city," Rose decided. "Mickey, Rickey, Jake-"
"He's not going anywhere I can't see him," Jake said, glaring at Pete.
Rose sighed. "Alright, Mickey, Rickey, you two go together. Me, Mrs. Moore, Pete, and Jake will go together."
The gathered group mumbled agreements, some more reluctantly than others, and got out of the van, heading in separate directions.
Rose cursed as cybermen spotted her group. "Run!" She shouted, wishing the Doctor was there to hold her hand as they ran.
They rounded a corner, and Rose's sonic screwdriver appeared in her hand, and she pointed it at the cybermen, the end glowing blue as she activated the tool, sending the cybermen into confusion.
"Come on," she muttered, motioning the others to follow her away from the cybermen.
"They're everywhere!" Jake exclaimed disbelievingly as the four stopped to take a breath under the bridge. Mickey ran up to them, and Rose knew it was her friend, not Rickey, by the energy that surrounded him.
"Rickey!" Jake said. "You are Rickey, right?"
Mickey stared at the ground, and Jake realized what happened.
"No!" He snarled. "You should be dead instead. You don't belong here!"
As Jake continued to hurl abuse at Mickey, Rose spoke up, cutting the angry boy off. "Enough! You can mourn your friend later. We have more important things for now."
At the top of the hill, the five stared down at Lumic's base at Battersea.
"I can infiltrate the base using these," Pete said, holding out two pairs of disabled earpods.
"There's an old set of cooling tunnels underneath the building," Mrs. Moore spoke up. "You could go through those."
"Or we could take out the transmitter and stop people from walking to their deaths," Rose said, before taking out her sonic screwdriver, and pointing it at the base. "Which is in the zeppelin," she concluded. "Jake, you and Mickey do that. Pete, you cannot show any emotions, under any circumstances. None at all. Mrs. Moore, you and I will go through the tunnels."
Jake made a noise of disgust at the plan, but said nothing, which Rose took as agreement to let Mickey come with him.
Rose and Mrs. Moore descended into the cooling tunnels, creeping past hundreds of slumbering cybermen, careful not to trip any alarms.
"I used to work for Cybus Industries, for Lumic. But then I read something on the mainframe that I wasn't supposed to see, and I've been on the run ever since. Met up with Rickey and Jake eventually, helped them out the best I could." Mrs. Moore laughed bitterly. "My name isn't even Mrs. Moore. It's Angela, Angela Pricer. But you can't tell anyone that. My family, my husband and children, they think I'm dead."
"I'm sorry," Rose said softly.
Just then, the inactive cybermen came to life, and Rose and Mrs. Moore began to run, escaping through a hatch just in time. Rose pointed her sonic at it, sealing it shut, before heaving a sigh of relief.
A cyberman clanked towards Rose and Mrs. Moore, Angela, whatever she wanted to go by, and the older woman quickly downed the cyberman with an EMP bomb.
Rose carefully approached the fallen cyberman, opening its chest cavity with the sonic screwdriver, revealing, much to the disgust of the two women, bits of a nervous system, and an emotional inhibitor.
"They'd go insane if they knew what they had become," Rose explained sadly.
"My name was Sally Phelan," the voice of the cyberman rasped, but there was something in it that there hadn't been before, and that was emotion, and Rose smiled, just a bit. "I was going to be married."
"I'm so sorry," Rose said softly, before pointing the sonic screwdriver at the cyberman, Sally, and sending the once woman into an everlasting sleep.
And then, it hit her. "The cybermen would go insane if they knew what had happened to them," Rose repeated herself slowly. "If we could deactivate the inhibitor, the shock would probably kill them."
Sensing Rose's hesitation, Angela put a hand on the Tardis-girl's shoulder. "We have to, to stop them from killing anyone else."
Before they had a chance to react, a cyberman appeared behind Angela, sending a burst of electricity through the woman's body, killing her.
"You are not like them," the cyberman stated, examining Rose. "You are an unknown upgrade. You will be taken to central command to be studied further."
Rose had bad feeling about this.
Pete was dragged next to Rose, and the man told Rose the news she hadn't wanted to hear, but needed to all the same. "Jackie's dead."
"Where's Lumic?" Rose asked, trying not to show how badly the news was affecting her.
A passing cyberman answered that question. "Lumic is superior. Lumic is Cyber-Controller."
A wall slid back, revealing a cyberman with glowing eyes, seated on a mechanical throne.
"This is the Age of Steel," the once-Lumic announced triumphantly. "And I have brought it forth."
"By killing innocent people!" Rose protested. "All those people, all their emotions, their imagination, their creativity, it's gone now. And it's what makes being human worth it!"
The sound of screaming came from below, and Rose smiled, knowing Mickey and Jake had succeeded in disabling the earpods.
The Cyebr-Controller let out a mechanical snarl. "The conversions can take place by force, if necessary," he told Rose, who scowled.
"You may have an army, but you've forgotten about the ordinary people. Even an idiot can save the world."
Oh, Mickey, please figure it out! Rose screamed internally as she continued to drop hints about the inhibitor code.
As if he had heard her, Rose's phone buzzed, and she plugged it into the console, smiling in grim satisfaction as cybermen began to scream in horror, all their emotions returning to them, and realizing what they had become.
"I'm so sorry," Rose murmured, wishing an apology could make up for all the pain these poor people had suffered.
"We have to get out of here!" Rose called to Pete.
"There's no way out!" Pete returned.
Rose's phone began ringing, and she held it up to ear, nearly crying with relief at the sound of Mickey's familiar voice.
"Get to the roof!" Mickey instructed.
Rose relayed Mickey's instructions to Pete, and the two began dodging panicking, collapsed, and even some exploding cybermen in the mad dash for the roof.
A yell of rage sounded behind them. The Cyber-Controller had stood from his metal throne, and was following Rose and Pete through the exploding factory.
Up on the roof, Rose and Pete began climbing the ladder up to the zeppelin, only for the ladder to be jerked by some great weight. The Cyber-Controller.
Rose, from her place below Pete, had the perfect opportunity. Clinging to the ladder with one hand, her sonic screwdriver appeared in the other, and she pointed it at the ladder, severing the ropes, sending the Cyber-Controller plummeting into the flaming factory.
Rose placed the Tardis crystal back in its proper spot, and the Tardis came to life once more, humming comfortingly to Rose, who had missed her sister dearly.
Rose stood, approaching Mickey, who had lingered outside with Pete and Jake.
"You don't have to say it," she said softly. "I already know."
"Rose, I…" Mickey trailed off.
"I'll be okay," Rose promised. "I'll have the Tardis. She'll take care of me."
Mickey nodded reluctantly as Rose turned to Pete. "I, I'm your daughter." Pete took a step back at Rose's bombshell, but Rose wasn;t done yet. "I'm from a parallel universe where you died when I was little."
Pete looked away from Rose. "I have to go tell the authorities about Lumic," he mumbled, before fleeing, and Rose tried to not feel too saddened by that. He wasn't her father, not really.
Rose looked at Jake. "Her name was Angela Pricer. That was Mrs. Moore's real name. She has a family out there somewhere. Take care of them, and let them know what happened to her."
Jake nodded seriously. "I will."
Rose handed Mickey her phone, before hugging him. "Get the code out there, Mickey. And don't forget about me."
Mickey shook his head. "You don't have to go, Rose."
"Oh, Mickey," Rose sighed. "I haven't treated you well at all, and I wish I could give you this. But there are things left for me to do, and someone has to keep the Tardis company. But you take care of yourself, okay?"
Mickey nodded, stepping out of Rose's embrace. "Bye, Rose."
The doors of the Tardis closed, and Rose sat down heavily in the console seat, her head in her hands.
"Sister?" The Tardis asked.
Rose stood, squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath. "Let's go home. We have lots to do."
Alright, my dear readers. Chapter three is done! So just out of curiosity, does anyone think Juno would be a good name for the Tardis? I'm sort of going with the Roman theme with the new name Rose will eventually take, but if no one likes it, then I'll scrap that idea.
