Disclaimer: I don't own either Doctor Who or Torchwood, though it truly pains me to say so. But if I did own either show, there would have been at least one crossover episode like this fic. :D

A/N: Thanks so much for the reviews, everyone. They made my week! *grins*


Chapter Seven

As the Doctor and Martha hurried out of the TARDIS, Martha slamming the door behind herself out of habit, they found the Torchwood team grouped together just a few feet away. Ianto and Gwen were artfully sprinkling salt across the pavement, while Jack watched silently. Owen was in the process of making some sarcastic comment. Tosh studied the screen of her small scanner device. "Approximately one minute until the Rift opening," she reported.

"Doctor? What is it?" Jack was the only one who had noticed the Time Lord practically flying out of the TARDIS, but the others looked up at the tension in his words.

The Doctor skidded to a stop beside Tosh, trainers squealing softly against the concrete. "Blimey, I hate to tell you this. Really, I do. It's going to completely ruin my reputation of brilliance…" He awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

"What's wrong?" Gwen asked, straightening from her stooped position. She rubbed her hands against the sides of her jeans, dislodging the tiny particles of salt that clung to her palms.

"Welllll, I don't think it's the TARDIS scanners kicking up a fuss, which actually happens quite often. And if I'm right, then I've miscalculated the frequencies and the mass of the size of the entity presently propelling its way through the Rift."

Owen blinked. "And in normal English that we simple deceased humans can understand..."

"I was wrong. About the creature coming through the Rift. It's, er, not a Lohk."

Jack's shoulders went rigid. "What?" he demanded, stunned. "If it's not a Lohk, then what the hell is it?"

"Um…I'm not entirely sure. Well, I say not sure…actually, I have a vague idea of the life form coming through. And it's not good."

Gwen looked to Jack for guidance. "Are we going to need our weapons for this one or not?" she asked uncertainly.

Ianto looked up from the pocket watch he'd slipped out of his coat pocket. "We're going to find out in around…thirty seconds," he said.

"Tosh, Gwen. Get the weapons kits from the car. Now!" Jack raised his voice significantly on the last word to show the seriousness of the situation. Both women turned and raced towards the SUV.

Owen didn't even turn around to appreciate the sight of them running, focusing instead of the white glow that was forming before them. Transparent wings the length of his body, tipped with glistening claws, formed. With them came a thick, leathery body covered erratically in scales. Slowly, the creature continued to form inside the white light. "Shit," he breathed, then hurriedly began fumbling for the gun attached to his belt.

Jack reached out and roughly grabbed Ianto by the shoulders, pulling him away from the forming creature. The Welshman stumbled, barely managing to regain his balance in time.

Martha swallowed hard, unable to tear her gaze away as the translucent body slowly become darker and darker, materializing into this reality. "Doctor?" she whispered, subconsciously hoping for some explanation about how the creature wasn't really that dangerous. Just a lost soul needing help back to their planet or some such gibberish.

Unfortunately, the Doctor's expression said otherwise.

He was staring directly at the structure of the alien as it continued to form, forehead puckered with a frown. "Oh, this is bad," he muttered to no one in particular, rubbing his jaw without taking his eyes from the creature.

Owen paused in the preparations of his gun. "How bad?"

"Think bad and add another ten suitcases of bad, with a sprinkling of bad on top of it all. Oh, and don't forget the other seven scoops of bad over that."

"Oh. Right."

The creature's eyes were crimson, shining from the fading white light like new blood. "Doctor, what is this thing?" Jack exclaimed, reaching for his pistol and cocking it. He didn't recognize the creature, even with all his Time Agent knowledge, which meant it couldn't be good.

The Doctor swallowed hard, throat working. "A Thredanian. It's a Thredanian," he said thickly.

The captain stared incredulously, something stirring in the depths of his memory. "A what?"

"Jack!" came Gwen's shout from behind the rest of them. "Jack, look out!" She apparantly felt the urge to inform the rest of them of the danger they were in. But there was really no need, because they already knew.

The blaze from the Rift portal vanished, leaving behind only the creature. It looked nightmarish, skin brown and wrinkled like well-worn leather. Owen's calculations of the size of its massive wings had been correct, and its face was warped grotesquely. Its snout was pointed, and sharp fangs glistened behind its twisted lips. Thick strands of green salvia dripped to the ground at its feet.

"Shit," Owen repeated dully, mouth falling open with shock.

"Get back! Everyone get back!" the Doctor yelled suddenly, waving both arms to better convey his urgency. He reached hurriedly for his sonic screwdriver, tossing aside several useless items like a rubber duck, an orange, and five feathers until he found the slim silver mechanism. He pointed it at the Thredanian, quickly thumbing through the various settings to find the one he needed.

The Thredanian unfurled its wings with a loud flapping sound, an animalistic shriek boiling from its lips. Salvia splattered both Martha and Ianto; Martha gasped aloud, clutching her arm, while Ianto cried out and clapped a hand over his cheek.

"What the hell…?" Owen, who was standing just to the left of Martha, easily saw the faint trace of smoke rising from her skin.

"It secretes acid in its salvia! Don't let any of it touch you!" the Doctor shouted hurriedly, finally establishing the correct setting for his sonic. He pressed the activation button, and a stream of vibrations inaudible to human ears flowed mercilessly over the Thredanian, assaulting its sensitive ears. It howled in agony, eyes blazing with fury.

Jack noticed the rage in the alien's intelligent stare, and felt a surge of intuition. "Doctor, I don't think that's such a good–"

And there was only chaos.

The Thredanian launched itself forward, moving with such speed and agility that it shocked all watching, except for the grim-faced Doctor. Fighting the obvious pain it was in, it forced its enormous body towards the Doctor. The Time Lord simply gritted his teeth and didn't move, increasing the power of his sonic even as the Thredanian dangerously advanced. Its toothy maw opened wide, revealing more of the dripping green saliva. Where it dripped in revolting puddles, the concrete sizzled.

"Doctor!" Jack couldn't just stand round any longer. He launched himself at the Thredanian, abandoning all caution and using his fists instead. He landed against its fleshy side, tearing at the tender tissue of its wings while trying to pull it away from the Doctor.

The Doctor's eyes widened, but he continued to bombard the Thredanian with sonic vibrations. Even as Jack dropped limply away from the alien, face almost completely eaten away with acid. It was a gruesome sight, and the Doctor quickly glanced away. He didn't understand why the Thredanian wasn't writhing in agony on the ground yet. The vibration level he was using should have knocked it out straight-away.

This just wasn't really his night.

"Oh my God!" Martha backed up several steps, unable to look away from Jack's decimated features. Her expression was one of horror.

The Doctor felt an additional surge of resolve. He upped the vibration signal of his screwdriver again, ears throbbing in pain. He grimaced, but his hand didn't waver. Unfortunately, the Thredanian was now bending down towards Jack's indifferent body, salvia burning even more holes in the exposed skin. Its teeth flashed in the glow from the surrounding streetlamps as it slowly lowered its massive head…

Two shots rang out, a pair of holes appearing side by side in the Thredanian's wing. Ianto stood with his feet planted slightly apart, holding a smoking gun. His expression was hard as he professionally kept his eyes averted from Jack's mangled body. Even though he knew the captain would come back to life as he always did, the sight was still extremely difficult to take in.

The Thredanian roared with rage, the sound grating darkly through the air and making several of the aforementioned streetlamps shatter. Even while Owen fired three times from his position, having finally got his gun in order, it didn't seem weakened. It was too full of anger and adrenaline to care about the pain right at that moment.

Eyes gleaming with a strange intensity, it focused on a new target, ignoring the bullets that Gwen and Tosh were now firing its way. It threw itself at the Doctor, knocking him to the ground. His head smacked to the concrete so hard that he literally saw stars, sonic rolling away from his numb fingers. He vaguely heard Martha shrieking his name, then there was a burst of agony throughout his body.

Everything faded into darkness.


"–fine, so leave me bloody alone! It's not like I'm bleeding everywhere! I'm dead, remember?"

"Owen, stop struggling! I'm just trying to – Owen!"

The Doctor jolted back into awareness, coughing and choking. As his watery gaze slowly cleared, he found himself to be spread across the back seat of the Torchwood SUV. Martha was shoved in next to him, looking slightly cramped with his head on her lap. He blinked rapidly, trying to figure out what was happening. From what he could make out, the SUV was in motion.

"What exactly is going on?" he asked with confusion. At least, that's what he meant to say. What really came from his lips was more along the garbled lines of, "Whmp empavity ef gomp oan?"

Martha looked down at him in shock, then a relieved expression crossed her face. "Oh, thank God you're all right, Doctor!" she declared happily, brushing a strand of hair from his sweaty forehead. "How're you feeling? Any, um, pain anywhere?"

The Doctor already knew by the insistent throbbing throughout his body that he wasn't really in top form. He cleared his throat, wincing, then slowly heaved himself into a sitting position. His trainers hit something with a solid thump, and he glanced down in surprise. Jack's gruesome corpse leered up at him from the floorboard of the moving vehicle, once-handsome face twisted grotesquely.

"Blimey," he croaked, quickly averting his eyes from the sight. He weakly rubbed his chest, noticing that his suit was badly torn. His hand came away sticky with blood. "I can't leave you lot alone for five minutes, can I?"

Martha followed his gaze, and grimaced. "He'll be fine in no time," she said quickly, sounding like she was actually trying to reassure herself. "It's you I'm worried about. How many fingers am I holding up?"

The Doctor didn't reply, wondering instead how she suddenly seemed to have eight fingers on one hand. Strange. Didn't humans only have five? He glanced around the interior of the dim SUV, just as it jerked sharply to one side. He was thrown against Martha, and bit back a cry of pain.

"How you doing? Need a shot of pain killer?" Owen looked over his shoulder at them, ignoring Tosh. The pretty Asian woman was frantically dabbing a cotton swab of hydrogen peroxide against the deep gash on his arm. She didn't seem to notice that it wasn't bleeding, and certainly wasn't going to become infected.

"No, no. I'm, er, fine." The Doctor gingerly touched his face, and was relieved to find that it seemed relatively undamaged. He didn't want to regenerate just yet, not when he was having so much fun with these teeth of his. "But I just have one teeny little question. Well, I say one. More like hundreds. Including, 'Why are humans always so stubborn?', 'Why do the Daleks keep coming back?', and 'Where exactly are we headed at the moment?'"

"We're following the Thredanian," Gwen replied from the driver's seat, roughly jerking the steering wheel to the right. Most of her passengers cried out in protest. Including Owen, who wasn't wearing a seatbelt and ended up tossed to the floor.

"After it killed Jack and attacked you, we managed to scare it off with a Gondan blaster ray. Scorched the skin off its left wing," Ianto said quietly from the front passenger seat, across from Gwen. "So it's evidently not invincible, just very hard to injure."

The Doctor suppressed an exclamation of disapproval, mentally reminding himself of the fact that the members of Torchwood had every right to be angry at the Thredanian. Not only had it attacked both Owen and himself, but it had killed Jack, and was now apparently on a rampage through Cardiff. Humans could only be expected to take so much before they wanted revenge, he supposed.

"Uh…guys? Target at ten o'clock," Owen said suddenly. He had been in the process of squeezing himself from the floor when he'd noticed the winged alien flapping past.

Gwen turned the SUV around accordingly, and the Doctor coughed several times as he crashed into Martha again. He deduced once he could breathe again that he definitely had at least one bruised rib. It would heal in no time, but it was still a nuisance, with all the running he so frequently did.

"Everybody get ready!" Owen threw open his door before Gwen had even come to a full stop, disappearing out into the darkness. The sound of him cocking his gun came clearly to the others, and the Doctor grimaced. He really didn't like guns, but he obviously wasn't going to get Torchwood to stop using them, whether he liked it or not.

Ianto followed the medic's example, grabbing his gun from the waistband of his trousers and leaping out of the SUV. Tosh and Gwen followed, the former carrying the handy little scanner device that she seemed never to be without.

The Doctor and Martha exchanged a glance. "Blimey, they get around fast." The Doctor coughed weakly, rubbing his aching side. Seeing Martha looking at him with concern, he hurriedly pulled a face. "I'll be fine, Martha Jones! Don't look so worried all the time. It's so…so…domestic."

Martha looked disgusted. "Doctor, you never change, do you?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that? Why would I want to change? I mean, look at me! Besides, 'changing' is actually a very painful process involving many flashes of light and other timey-wimey things that I can't really explain to you, since you don't have the brain of a Time Lord. Thankfully." He looked momentarily haunted by something only he could see in his mind's eye. "So, anyway! Let's just leave it at that, and get out to stop Torchwood from getting killed by the Thredanian, yeah?"

Before they could climb from the SUV, there was a great gasping of air from the floor at their feet. Martha gave a little scream, and the Doctor gasped, though he quickly tried to hide his shocked reaction. Jack was sitting up in the floor, which was rather cramped for his tall form, looking round with a dazed sort of confusion. His brow was wrinkled, and miraculously unmarked by the acid that had previously eaten it away.

"Jack! Oh my God, are you okay?" Martha cried, reaching down to comfortingly pat him on the shoulder. Even though she had seen him die many a time, she never got over the mixed horror and wonder of it.

Jack blinked, trying to get his bearings. "What the hell just happened?" he demanded.

"Well, our nasty little mate just killed you a few minutes ago," the Doctor offered helpfully. "Ate away your face with acid. And that jaw line you tried to convince everyone I was here to see when I first arrived," he added cheerfully. "Oh, you know. Nothing out of the usual."

"Huh," the captain said, frowning, just as the sound of three gunshots exploded outside the SUV. "What the hell? Someone want to tell me what's going on out there?"

"I'd wager that's your mates, trying to shoot the Thredanian," the Doctor replied disdainfully. "We've been following it ever since it killed you, apparently. And from those sounds, I don't exactly think their attempts are going very well."

"Okay, Doctor. You're the expert. How the hell do we stop this thing?"

The Time Lord scratched the top of his head, looking slightly embarrassed. "I'm really ruining my reputation tonight, but…I don't have a clue. Nope. Nada. No beans."

Martha stared at him. "But, Doctor. You knew what the Thredanian was when you saw it. Don't you know how to stop it?" It was strange to think that he actually didn't know something about the universe.

He shrugged. "Just because I've seen the species before doesn't mean I've walked up to them and asked them how they die. I'm not that rude. That's like going up to a Beastial and asking them how they–"

"Okay." Jack abruptly cut him off. "Let's get out there and do the best we can, before innocent people are killed. You said this thing is worse than a Lohk, Doctor, and I'm not going to let it muck about in Cardiff."

He hurriedly made for the nearest door, kicking the Doctor and Martha several times in the process. The Doctor collapsed, coughing, when one of Jack's feet so rudely made contact with his chest. He and Martha eventually tumbled out after the captain, and discovered a startling sight.

The Thredanian, wings spread out dramatically across its backdrop of the Cardiff skyline, roared angrily down at the members of Torchwood. Owen, Gwen, and Ianto had their feet planted firmly apart, and were firing upon the creature. Tosh stood off to the side, frantically pressing button on her little device. She was allegedly trying to figure out a way to stop the winged alien before it killed one of her teammates.

As though on cue to make a show for its new observers, it gave another vengeful cry, the primeval sound chilling Martha to her bones, then dived down at its attackers. Gwen cried out, dodging, and Ianto rolled smoothly away before he could be hit by a wing. Owen stared the thing down, still firing, and he was easily swiped away by a monstrously clawed foot. He cried out only once, then collided hard with the ground several feet away.

Tosh yelled his name, actually looking up from her screen, features marred with horror. Gwen and Ianto stared wordlessly, momentarily taking their gazes from the threat at hand, afraid that their deceased teammate had finally lost his head. Literally.

Fortunately for all of them, especially Owen, he was already sitting up. He quickly pulled the sleeve of his shirt down to cover a new bruise marring the skin of his shoulder before the others could see it, one that would be everlasting.

The Thredanian was apparently tired of being ignored. With another shriek, it flew down at Gwen, claws outstretched. Before she could defend herself, it grabbed her by the arm and attempted to rip said appendage away. She screamed, with both anger and pain, and tried to twist her body away.

Jack dashed away from the Doctor and Martha, joining the fray. He pulled out his relic of a gun and began steadily firing at the Thredanian. Following the captain's example, Ianto walked unhurriedly over to join him, squeezing the trigger of his own gun in perfect rhythm. Their teamwork was that of a well-oiled machine as they advanced on the cawing Thredanian. Bullets simply bounced off its leathery hide, but the collaboration was still spectacular.

Gwen, tearing her eyes from the pair of them, rushed over to Owen. Tosh continued scanning the Thredanian with rays of energy invisible to the human eye, checking for possible weaknesses.

But the Doctor had already spotted one.

His dark eyes became very round as he stared at the Thredanian's right wing, cradled protectively across the front of its chest. It wasn't very noticeable to the unobservant eye, and even looked natural, but the Doctor couldn't not notice. There was only reason it would be hiding its chest like that: it was protecting the vulnerable point of its body.

He pulled out his screwdriver, hardly able to believe that stopping the alien could really be this easy. He almost wished he'd thought of it earlier, but that would have ruined all the…fun they'd been having. He aimed that screwdriver at the Thredanian's vulnerability point, and set it on the same setting he'd been attempting to use earlier. Then he activated the sonic.

A loud buzzing sound emitted from the slim silver tube, and Martha grimaced and covered her ears. The Thredanian's head whipped round, and it gave an unearthly screech of pain. Then it plummeted to the ground with a hard thud, sending small shockwaves through the concrete. It was obviously unconscious.

The Doctor slowly lowered his screwdriver, very obviously disappointed with his own behavior. "I'm so sorry; truly, I am," he muttered, though the creature had no hope of overhearing him.

"I must admit, that was very anticlimactic," Ianto said, breaking the awkward silence.

Jack strode over, grinning from ear to ear. He slapped the Doctor on one shoulder, looking apologetic when the other man winced. "Great work, Doc. Crisis averted."

The Doctor nodded sadly, then suddenly brightened as an idea occurred to him. "Okay, let's get the Thredanian rounded up and strapped to the roof of the SUV."

"What?" Owen frowned, fastening his gun into the waistband of his jeans.

"We're going to take this beauty and dump him back into the Rift, so he can find his way back to wherever it is he belongs," the Doctor said firmly, leaving no room for arguments.

Ianto simply heaved a sigh. "I'll have to dig up the detailing paint when we get back to the Hub, then. It wouldn't be very professional to have claw marks all over the roof." He looked at Jack, raising a single brow. "And no, I'm not going to change my mind about your idea for transporting Owen up there just because of this one occurrence."

Jack rolled his eyes. "Oh, Ianto. You're no fun." He clapped his hands. "Okay, people. Let's get the Thredanian bound to the roof and finish this up."


Guess what, everyone. My birthday is Monday! So if you review, it'll be like you're giving me birthday presents! Wouldn't that be great? *grins alluringly* … Anyway, thanks for reading. :D