Standard disclaimers, bladdy bladdy bladdy blah. Cows go moo and ducks go quack. Or so the Fisher Price toy tells me. (Nobody reads these things anyways is what I'm saying)

Superdy dooperdy shout-out to new beta, Kates Master. TOTALLY way nicer than Brendan, and didn't pick on me at ALL.

XYZ

Devourer of Souls

Chapter 10

XYZ

Mickey tried to warn Rose, but the shadow enveloped him, cutting off all sound and nearly all thought. For a moment he floated there, caught in a hot, painful darkness, unable to tell which way was up. The air grew thin, then nonexistent, and he felt the thing moving closer to the open door of the TARDIS.

Somewhere beyond the perimeter of the shadow he saw Jackie scream, but there was no noise. Some energy weapons went off, but they weren't doing anything. Reaching into his vest, Mickey pulled out flash canisters and pulled the pins, one after another, pushing them away from him, and then going for the next one as fast as he could move within the darkness.

They ignited a bit too close to him, but in short succession. He was still surrounded by darkness, but it had loosened its grip. He could breathe again. Two more of the security officers were caught in the shadow with him, their weapon fire becoming useless. The darkness loosened a bit on them as well, but it was still not retreating and separating.

Sparks were flying overhead, and Mickey hoped that even if he wasn't there to see it, they'd got this thing. He knew why Rose had been so hell-bent—this thing only had one thing Being surrounded by it was like being enveloped in pure evil.

XYZ

Looking around like she'd lost her keys, Rose reached into the green jacket still pulled around Violet, taking out the last canister. "Alright. I'll buy you some time. I'm not sure how yet… but I'll do it." She needed to find some way of keeping this thing from jumping into the time vortex after the TARDIS. A distraction… something…

Violet shrugged off the coat. "I think I know how." Inside the pocket Rose hadn't checked, Violet pulled out the metal letter opener. "But… you're not going to like this."

Rose's first instinct was to scold, but the feeling left her quickly when she saw the girl also take out the sonic staple remover. The petty theft thing had all been for something, even if neither of them had known it.

Clambering onto a plate covering part of the control panel, Violet wrapped both hands around the opener, and then jammed it into the crack between the panel and the plate. Rose couldn't believe that she'd managed to hit the crack much less lodge it in there, with the amount of force she'd put into it. "Ok. Now hold this."

Rose didn't question, she simply did. She didn't know how she felt about predestination, but she was learning to deal with 'fate,' and so, at least for right now, she had a part to play. Touching it, she felt just how hard the little girl had jammed it in there. "Ok, Vi. What've you got planned?"

In the silence outside, sparks were flying. Whatever they were going to do, they had to do it now. Rose couldn't see much, but from what was visible, it was taking increasing amounts of energy and light to distract the thing, and soon they wouldn't be able to keep it from the ship's door.

Without waiting, the girl lifted the chunky little staple remover, pointing it at the letter opener. "It says its OK to do this, so, uh, well, here goes." Zapping the letter opener, Violet winced.

Rose felt the surge of energy run through her, like a burning wind. The moment Violet's thumb released from the staple remover, the fire stopped.

Violet smiled as Rose let out a breath, golden energy floating away from her like steamy air on a wintery wintry day. "The TARDIS promised it wouldn't be enough to eat you up." The girl took a deep breath, swelling with pride at the Bad Wolf. "Go get It," the child ordered as she closed the door behind her Bad Wolf.

The Lemuxarius Filivander wasn't going to win. No one else would get hurt, because she and her family said so. Running over to the controls, she slapped the button. Ducking back into her cubby, Violet pulled the jacket around her then slid under the strap of the duffel bag, snatching up the bear again.

Everything was going to be OK. She didn't know how, but everything was going to work out in the end.

XYZ

Jackie screamed when she saw what it was doing to Mickey, yelling at the thing to stop. Up on the edge of it, she was fully prepared to start beating on its hide when Pete yanked her behind a crate.

"And what the hell do you think you're doing?" he asked angrily.

She pushed his hand away from her arm. "Well, it's not like YOUR solving the problem so well."

Pete scowled at her. "Can you just stop trying to get yourself killed? Completely unarmed! You're completely insane."

Standing up, Jackie held out her hand. "Then give me something, oaf." Jackie'd be damned if she'd let this thing win.

Pete handed her the UV flare launcher. "That's my girl."

There was a series of quick flashes coming from within the center of the mass—Mickey wasn't going down without a fight at least. They weren't bright because they were within the heart of the thick shadow, but they did weaken it. "Hit it, now!"

It wasn't rocket science; pulling the trigger was pretty self-explanatory. The pulses came out one after another, lighting up on the edges of the creature, little else happening.

Jackie never ever wanted to be in a position to save the world again, as long as she lived. However, if she were going to be in it now, she'd like to at least have it work out all right.

Suddenly, the darkness pulled away from her, the security guards and Mickey. It began swirling like a tornado in front of an opened storage locker. In the center of the cyclone was a golden light that cut through the shadow's gloom. It walked towards them.

Mickey backed up, nearly stumbling as he ran into Pete and Jackie. "Oh no, Rose. What have you done?"

Hearing the horrible, wonderful sounds of a TARDIS blinking in and out of here and there, Jackie walked towards the shadow a few steps and squinted, seeing suddenly what Mickey was talking about. The Bad Wolf was back, and Violet was nowhere in sight.

XYZ

The Doctor heard it. It was all he could do to keep from busting out of his skin at the cranking, yawing sound. His lost part was coming back!

Unable to contain himself, he spun around on one foot, trainer squeaking on the painted cement floor. "Thankyouthankyouthankyou…" He didn't know where it was directed, his ship, the Universe… he didn't care. He thanked them all!

And as soon as she was there, they'd stop these little demons, and they'd keep the universe from popping, and everything would be as it should be. "Thank you, thank you… Rose Tyler. Rose Tyler whom I'd have gone domestic for." It would have been unbecoming of a Time Lord to squeal, so if anyone asked, he would swear he had no idea what that sound had been, or where it had come from. He felt like the Tinman, getting a heart! All of his parts, at last!

Fading as it came and went and came again, the Doctor beheld, quite possibly, the ugliest time travel device ever conceived. He looked back quizzically at his own ship, questioning it's taste. Of course, if you were the last lady TARDIS in existence, the last fellow TARDIS in existence would start looking mighty good, he supposed. He just hoped their offspring didn't have dad's bulbous head. A functioning chameleon circuit would be good, but anything was better than that lumpy, uneven dome.

A rush went through him, and he felt the most dominant personality of the shadow creature. It was little more than a speck circling the ship, and it'd take some time for it to rejoin the other parts, but some small, important part had managed to escape the other universe, following the TARDIS across the single thread between the worlds, all the way there. It wasn't all the parts that the other universe contained—otherwise he'd be pretty much screwed. As it was, he was "only" in an unbelievably large load of trouble.

But it didn't matter! This thingy was toast, just as soon as they figured out what it was. "Rose!" he called out, looking for the door on this unfortunate and unattractive ship disguise.

Finding the door hinge, he popped opened the completely unlocked (really! Safety first, people!) door of the ship. "Rose…" Grinning and laughing manically, he flung open the door and stopped.

Rose was not in sight. But huddled under the controls was something that left him equally speechless. Stopping dead in his tracks two steps inside the door, he stared with wide eyes and licked his suddenly dry lips. This was…he wouldn't have guessed, and he was having trouble wrapping his considerably large mind around it. Amazing. Fantastic even.

The girl looked up at him, liquidy brown eyes staring up from a tear-stained face, surrounded in a wild tangle of dirty blonde hair.

It wasn't his missing leg. It was some other part of him entirely—one he hadn't known had been missing until just now.

XYZ

The cyclone continued to spin unrelentingly, stirring everything in the room that wasn't tied down. Unconsciously, Jackie edged toward it.

It wasn't like last time, which had frightened Jackie enough, with the glowing and the wind that had constantly seemed to whip about her daughter. This time… Rose looked tired.

Pete grabbed her arm, but didn't try to pull her back. He did seem to draw in a sharp breath, though, when she loudly asked, "Where's Violet?"

The unearthly voice responded, "She has gone. She is safe."

Mickey moved up next to Pete and Jackie. "Then can't you stop it now? If she's safe?" That had been the whole point in this exercise, wasn't it?

The effort of maintaining the cyclone seemed to be taking a toll on Rose—her face contorted as she pulled together the energy to speak. "No. The rest is up to the Doctor now. I will keep it contained until he acts. I have allowed the Dominant Will to travel with the TARDIS. It will fly right to him."

Mickey thought that was a dumb plan—but hey, she was the Bad Wolf. Her hands seemed to be trembling under the strain of maintaining the swirling force surrounding her and her face told of the strain. "I just hope you can hold out that long, Rose."

XYZ

Taking a few tentative steps into the ship, the Doctor smiled, leaning forward just a bit. Maybe an hour wasn't too long to wait for some things. "Well, hello," he said gently. Didn't want to scare the tyke—she looked like she'd already had a time of it. "I'm the Doctor. And who have we here?"

"Hi," the child responded in a voice so soft he could barely hear, but got louder as she went. "Violet—Violet Tyler, sir. I was just wondering…"

The grin spread across the Doctor's face. "Yeah?"

She looked past him. "Can we kill this thing now?"

The Doctor spun around just as the soul-creature poured through the (stupidly left open) door of the ship. "Yeah." He swallowed. "I think we can manage it. But just right now, I'm not exactly sure as to the how."

Aiming his sonic screwdriver at the mass, he pressed a button, and it seemed to pause. This setting wouldn't work long on the creature. It was now enormous.

Which gave him about three seconds to think up a really, REALLY clever plan.

TBC