Episode 5:2- World War 3

"I'm sorry, what?" asked Rose.

"Raxacoricofallapatorians," confirmed Hobbes.

"Raxa- what?"

"Raxacoricofallapatorians."

"Say it again, sorry?"

"Raxacoricofallapatorians," repeated the tiger, getting slightly annoyed.

"I didn't get that."

"Raxacoricofallapatorians."

"And what exactly are..."
"Raxacoricofallapatorians? They're aliens. From the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"And that clears everything up. Sure." Rose shook her head to clear it. "So... what about these Slitheen things, then?"

"Slitheens are Raxacoricofallapatorians."

"Huh?"
Calvin had finally recovered as well, and scrambled over to take part in the conversation. "So, it's two names for the same thing, then? Let's go with the easier name."

Hobbes listened again for a moment. "Uh... no. As far as I can tell, the Slitheen is a family name, like Tyler, or Potter, or whatever Calvin's last name is. So, they have a ridiculously long first name, and then... Slitheen."

"What's their plan, then?" Harriet had been listening to this whole byplay and now felt a bit obliged to get in on the action. The other three stared at her. "What?" she asked, a bit self-consciously. "Whenever aliens attack on TV, they always have some sort of plan. What's the point of infiltrating the British government and misleading the police if you don't have some sort of plan?"

A long pause.

"I think you've been watching too many sci-fi programmes," Hobbes confided. He pressed his sensitive feline ear to the wall again, and paused. "But, yeah, you're right. They're planning to..."

"...mine this planet for its resources and sell the scrapped place to the highest bidder," finished the female Slitheen, who had been standing, watching this without any of them noticing. They all turned around.

"Oh, hi," said Calvin after a beat. "This is Rose Tyler, my friend Hobbes, sorry, I don't know this person's name...?"

"Harriet," supplied Harriet.

"Harriet, thanks. And I'm Calvin. How do you do?"

"Calvin who?" asked the Slitheen, or, as she could be called, Raxacoricofallapatorian. But that's a bit bulky, so we'll just stick with Slitheen until the narrative finds something better.

"Just Calvin, thanks. I used to have a last name, but Susie fed me one of her doll's fairy cakes and I vomited so hard that my last name came out of me and soaked into the sidewalk. And you are?"
"Margaret was the human I inhabited, so I suppose you could call me that," said the slimy thing that shall henceforth be called 'Margaret'.

"I don't suppose you'll tell us what you're planning, and give us a quick, hero-like way to stop you?" asked Rose hopefully.

"Not a chance," 'Margaret' growled. She raised her voice. "I found them! They're over here!"

"Into the wagon!" yelled Hobbes, jumping in first. Rose and Harriet followed, but Calvin stood his ground.

"You slimy Rackicoracopalafattofries! You shall never defeat the likes of Spaceman Spiff..!"

"Someone slap him!" yelled Hobbes. Rose obliged. Calvin yelped in pain as he was dragged into the wagon by the scruff of his shirt.

"Hit the antigrav button!"

"There's an antigrav button?!"

Calvin slammed his fist down on a button that was an odd mix of pink and purple, and not in a way that makes a nice shade of brown, either. Let's call it Urple, for fun. A loud screeching noise, similar to the sound your mother might make when you run her beloved cat over with a cement mixer, echoed about the room, and the wagon leapt into the air, and stayed there in exactly the same way a bowling ball doesn't. And the narrator drowned in similes.

"How do you steer this thing in mid-air?" Rose screeched, clutching onto the sides of the wagon for dear life. Calvin shrugged.

"I don't know. This is the first time I've used this feature."

Rose turned to him, her mouth a perfect 'O'. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME-"

The rest of that sentence was drowned out in an explosion of color, noise, and sound as the wagon ploughed through the roof.

"-WORRY, I HAVE A FORCE FIELD!" Calvin screamed, jabbing at a button that looked like another shade of Urple, even more disgusting than the last. A shimmering, translucent bubble that looked way too fragile to keep back the bits of plaster and brick that were currently thundering down on them. Fortunately, as I may have pointed out before, the walls (and ceilings) were thin.

"We're on the roof!" exclaimed Harriet. They were indeed on the roof, leaving a crashed-up hole of furniture and debris tunnelling several floor below them. If someone (or something) could jump high enough, they would have a direct way up to where our four heroes were currently camped out. Fortunately, Raxacoricofallapatorians can't jump very high at all. They kinda just...squelch. So, for the moment, our little quartet of heroes are safe.

"Right," Calvin declared, sitting down on a loose piece of shingles. "What did you hear?"

"Well," Hobbes began. "as our... for lack of a better word, 'friend' Margaret told us back there-"

("What about 'enemy'?" Rose suggested.)

"-they're planning to mine Earth for its resources and sell the empty husk off to the highest intergalactic bidder."

"There are aliens who'd want to buy a shrivelled planet?" asked Harriet, disgusted.

"Unfortunately, yeah."

"Question," Rose said, raising her index finger. "How do they get into the bodies? And how did they drain them in the first place?"

Hobbes pulled a face. "Well, they basically just suck their victim dry, and use a compressor thing to squeeze themselves in."

"Like a vampire?" Calvin wanted to know.

"Well... if vampires suck out your internal organs and bones as well as blood, yeah. And since the Slitheen are really quite big, and the bodies of humans are really quite small, the compression is uncomfortable, and they let out a lot of gas. Hence, the farting."

Calvin giggled a bit in the corner. Rose glared at him. She wasn't really in the mood for inappropriate humor while the world was going to be destroyed, and told him as much.

"Hey, I'm a six year old American kid," he defended himself. "I don't need appropriate humor."

"Right," sighed Hobbes. "The question is, how do we get rid of them?"

"Blow them up!" shrieked Calvin.

"This is the same person who saved the world from shop dummies?" muttered Rose.
"No, he does have a point," admitted Hobbes. "Blowing this place up would be the best course of action."

"You're planning to blow up 10 Downing Street?" yelled Rose. "Are you insane?"

Calvin glanced at her.

"Okay, yes, you are insane, I knew that already, but..." She struggled for words, then gave up. "How are you gonna do it?"

"Well... shoot a missile at it?" Harriet suggested. Everyone turned to stare at her. "What? It's the best idea anyone's had so far."

"How do we shoot a missile at it?" Hobbes posed.

"This is turning into a game of 20 Questions," Rose grumbled. Calvin coughed into his hand.
"I have a way," he said.

"Ooh! Is it bigger than a breadbox?" Rose asked excitedly.

"What? Yes. I guess."

"Animal, vegetable, mineral, or other?":

"Other. Will you just stop this?"

"I'm the one asking the questions here!"

"Shush! Due to a long series of events about a year ago that ended up with me being married to Vlad the Impaler-"

("No, seriously," Rose said. "That's the second time you've mentioned that. What happened?")

"-I'll tell you later. The point is, the long, convoluted series of events somehow ended up with me having the key codes to the UK's military defense force. You can see what we can do with that, right?"

Hobbes's jaw dropped. "Wait, how long have you had these codes?"

"Like I said, for about a year."

"Then why on Earth haven't you used them to blow up someone you hate, when something goes wrong? And why, for that matter, haven't you sent a missile careening into the Pentagon, just for kicks?"

"I have excellent self-control?" Calvin tried. Hobbes began to laugh. "Okay, okay, I need good Wifi connection. And there isn't any sort of internet at our house back home."

"But that means we can't shoot a missile," said Rose reasonably. "There's not any sort of internet connection around here."

Unfortunately, she was right. They were sitting ducks, just up there on the roof. I never really understood that phrase, 'sitting ducks'. Ducks aren't the only creatures that sit. A feeling of gloom and despair fell over the group.

And Rose's phone rang.

It was a cheery rendition of You Make My Pants Wanna Get Up and Dance, and seemed drastically out of place in the setting.

"...Rose?" Hobbes asked eventually.

"Yes?"

"Who do you know that would call you during an emergency?"

Pause.

"...my boyfriend."

Rose scrambled around in her pocket, and pulled out the mobile phone that Hobbes had upgraded all those episodes ago, and answered it. "Mickey!"

"Rose!" Mickey yelled from in the car where he and Jackie Tyler currently were. "We just got attacked by a-"

"-vicious alien with a habit of farting, right?"

"Yeah. How did you know?"

"I got attacked by one too."

"Don't be sarcastic! It really did happen! Look, I'll send you a photo."

He pressed a few keys on his phone, and there was a reassuring beep as the image went across. A pause from the other end.

"You didn't need to take a selfie, you know," snorted a boy's voice.

"Calvin!" Rose scolded. "That's mean."

"Yup, that's a Slitheen," said another male.

"Is that Rose?" Jackie demanded. "Let me talk to her!" She snatched the phone from Mickey's grip, and pressed 'speakerphone'. "Rose?"

"No, I am not Rose," said the male voice that had identified the alien. "I'm her sarcastic talking tiger friend, Hobbes. How do you do?"

"Hobbes, get off the phone!" Rose yelled. A scuffle, and then a slight crash.

"Rose?" Jackie asked uncertainly.

"What does this button do?" asked the other boy curiously.

"Calvin!" Rose, Hobbes, and another woman exclaimed. Mickey turned to Jackie.

"She met some interesting people when she was gone," he said slowly.

"Hello. I'm Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North," the other woman said. "Am I right in assuming that you're Rose's mother?"

"Yes," said Jackie.

"Do you have internet connection where you are?" asked Hobbes.

"Wait, who are you people, bossing us around?" demanded Mickey.

"Calvin," said Calvin.

"Hobbes."

"Harriet Jones."

A sigh rattled along the line. "They're... my friends, I suppose. Just listen to them. They're better than me at this," said Rose.

"Internet connection?" asked Hobbes again. Mickey glanced at his laptop.

"Sure, just give me a sec. I need to pull over to find a hotspot."

He pulled into the parking lot of McDonalds, and opened Google Chrome. "Right. What now?"

"Type, www dot army dot mod dot uk."

He did so, then frowned. "Why am I on the British Military Website?"

"Because you're going to fire a missile at 10 Downing Street," Calvin calmly informed him.

"WHAT?" Jackie yelled. "Why are we doing this. Where are you right now?"

A long pause. Then-

"10 Downing Street," Rose said.

Several things happened at once. Jackie choked on her own saliva, Mickey's eyes bugged out, and on the other end of the line, a Slitheen emerged from the hole in the roof.

They had been so busy talking (and arguing) on the phone, that they only noticed the alien when it tried to kill them with a lead pipe. In retrospect, Rose's scream was probably the only thing that saved them from death by murderous farting monster. Hobbes reacted instinctively, and pounced the alien, slamming directly into it, and bouncing back before he could fall off the roof. The Slitheen wasn't so lucky. With a squelchy scream, it fell off the roof.

Five seconds later, there was a wet splat.

Rose peeked over the edge, before drawing back with a shudder. "Ew. That's a sight that'll haunt my nightmares for the next couple of centuries."

"I'm hoooome," Calvin sang, deadpan. Hobbes chuckled dryly.

"Well!" Harriet clapped her hands together. "One down. Several to go."

"What's happening over there?" Jackie asked.

"Just a minor annoyance," Rose said. "Have you got into the missile catalogue yet?"

"Yeah," Mickey said. "But we need a password."

"Calvin?" Rose passed the phone over to him.

"Right. Uh... 'swordfish spongebob open albus user invoke 3-7-5-2'. Got that, Rose's Boyfriend?"

"The name's Mickey. And yes, I have got it."

"Great. Just send a small missile at us. We don't want to be blown up that much."

"'That much'?"

"Yeah. We might be able to escape."

"Might?" yelled Jacqueline Tyler. "What do you think you're doing, buddy, risking my daughter's life like this!"

Calvin shrugged, although Jackie couldn't see it over the phone. "Saving the world? If you don't like it, Earth will be destroyed and sold off to the highest bidder."

"Sending the missile now," Mickey interrupted. "You'd better have a plan."

"How long until it hits?" Hobbes asked.

"20 minutes."

"We'll have a plan in 19. Give us some time. We're making this up as we go."

He pressed the disconnect button before any protests were raised, and turned back to the others. "Right. Plans."

"I'm all out," Calvin admitted.

"None here."

"Sorry."

"All the Slitheen are in the building, right?" Rose put in.

"Yesss... all except the one that attacked your boyfriend."

"So... lock the doors, keep them in?"

"Great idea!"

"It's okay," said Calvin grudgingly. "But what do we lock the doors with?"

"Keys!" exclaimed Harriet, holding up a ring with several identical silver keys hanging off it. "I... uh, 'appropriated' these a few weeks ago. They're master keys."

"'Appropriated'?" asked Calvin, raising an eyebrow. "Don't you mean, 'stole'?"

"Eh," Harriet shrugged, tossing a key to everyone. "To-may-to, to-mah-to."

"I claim the wagon," Calvin declared. "Let's go, everyone."

"We're locking ourselves in a building with murderous aliens that are trying to kill us," Rose said slowly.

"Yes? You have a problem with that?" Calvin scowled.

"...no. Let's go."

"Ten four."

15 minutes and 12 seconds later, Hobbes bumped into Harriet, who had just finished locking all of the second floor windows.

"How are we for time?" she asked.

"5 minutes, roughly."

Calvin emerged from a broken-down wall. "And I took care of the ground floor. We're good."

"Good job. Where's Rose?"

"I left her being chased by a Slitheen."

There was an angry scream, as Rose crashed through the (very thin) wall, creating yet another hole that the carpenters would never really get around to fixing, due to a missile being about to crash in less than five minutes.

"Calvin, you JERK!" yelled Rose.

"Gee, this brings back memories," Calvin muttered.

"A la Susie," Hobbes agreed.

"By the way, the last Slitheen came back to the building. I locked the door behind it."

Awkward pause.

"Well, that's... convenient," Hobbes said. Calvin nodded.

"Yeah, I was kinda expecting to have to do something overly dramatic to take care of it."

Harriet tapped her fingers impatiently against the wall. "Sorry to interrupt, but there's about 3 minutes until the missile hits. Shouldn't we try to get out?"

"No need," Calvin assured her. "We can just go in the Time Machine."

Harriet had half opened her mouth, as if she was about to ask a question, but then closed it. "Nevermind. As long as you're sure it'll work."

"Where did you park it?" Rose asked.

"'The first closet on the right hand side of the staircase of the third floor'," Calvin quoted. "All aboard!"

The unlikely group piled themselves into the wagon, and Calvin started up the motor. "Now, pre-flight safety check!"

"We're about to get blown up by a missile that we basically sent at ourselves! We don't need a safety check!"

"Of course we do! Seatbelts?"

"CALVIN!" everyone screamed. Hobbes took the opportunity to send the wagon into First Gear, and they rocketed off down the highway.

"Spaceman Spiff is back in his vehicle!"

"Shut up," Rose requested, as they neared the staircase again. Hobbes hit the anti-gravity button, and they sailed up the staircase. They arrived in the hallway.

"Right! Where's the closet?" Hobbes asked.

"One minute!" Harriet sing-songed.

"Uh... uh... uhh..." Calvin spun around. The doors were all identical. "That one!" he guessed. They flung open the door. Thankfully, the Time Machine was in.

"Everyone in!"

"Three...two...one..."

The explosion shook the building to the ground, and the roof collapsed inwards. But it didn't matter, because the Time Machine was gone.

From the McDonalds where Jackie and Mickey were parked, they could see the missile's progress through the sky. When it hit, and the building collapsed in an implosion of shrapnel, Jackie began to sob.

"Miss me?" asked a familiar voice. Jackie sat upright.
"Rose! We thought you were... you were..."

"Dead?" supplied a boy with spiky yellow hair. "I wish. Thanks to my clever plan-"

"It was my idea!" objected Rose, which instigated a lengthy argument between her, the boy, and a stuffed tiger.

"This is..." Mickey began.

"Odd?" suggested Jackie. "Yeah, I think so too. At least she has friends."

"One of them's six, and the other's a stuffed animal," he pointed out.

"Well..." Jackie sounded unsure. "I'm sure she has her reasons."

"Yeah, but are they good ones?"

The argument finished up, Rose and the boy having seemingly deferred to the tiger, and they turned to Mickey and Jackie.

"Hello," said the boy. "I'm Calvin. And we need to take Harriet Jones home right now. We'll meet you back at your place. I'm sure Hobbes will explain everything to you."

Jackie eyed the stuffed tiger uneasily.

"See you!" Rose chirruped.

They both climbed into the cardboard box that stood behind them. A crack in reality appeared before it, and the box flew away.

Hobbes cracked his knuckles, and readied the rubbed mallet. This was going to be an awkward discussion.

"Well," said Rose an hour later. "The aliens are gone, no one knows it was our fault a major landmark got demolished, Harriet is back, and we're having fun watching Calvin try to explain quantum mechanics and time travel to my mum and boyfriend."

"All in all, a good day," agreed Hobbes, sipping at his glass of pineapple juice. "You've packed your bags, right?"

"Sure," Rose nodded, patting a pink satchel carefully. "Everything I could possibly need. And then some."

Hobbes ran a claw along the edge of his glass. "Are you sure you want to come?"

"Just try and convince me not to. The universe is amazing. I've seen it, and now I can't go back."

"You know..." Hobbes began thoughtfully. "...there are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. I know a planet where it's entirely made out of glass. Every person, every animal, every building." He grinned, as if to say we really should go there sometime, and continued. "I bet if we searched hard enough, there'd be people made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. There's a whole universe out there to discover, and it's all in the confines of some tiny little cardboard box that happens to be sitting in your lounge room right now. The question is, are you coming?"

Rose clapped politely. "Quite the little speech."

Hobbes grinned bashfully. "Thanks. But are you coming?"

The question hung in the air. Rose grinned happily. "Well, what do you think?"

Hobbes leapt to his feet, tail flicking frantically up and down. "Come on, Rose! We've got work to do!"

(A/N:

The last little line of dialogue was taken from the Seventh Doctor's episode 'Survival' and twisted to my own fiendish means. Thank you, thank you.

Thanks once again to my lovely beta, A Drama Queen, who is repeatedly right, no matter how hard I try to stop her.

Now, how come you've got a two-day-early update? Well, today's my birthday. I'm now 13, and I figured a good break from tradition (namely, me giving you a present) would be appropriate. My birthday wish is to somehow be mentioned on TvTropes, but that's not gonna happen soon.

Check out my profile. There's a listing in the links section for the Calvin Who theme music I've put on my YouTube channel.

Be awesome! And give me reviews! That's my birthday wish.

~Kitty)