inujisan: Yupyup. Sonic the Comic was pretty cool that way. ;)

tanglestalker909: Glad to provide suspense! :D Thanks for the review^^

Chapter 10: Fear the Reapers

"That- that's him?" Rose asked disbelievingly, pointing at the pair of both Robotnik and Kintobor. "The same guy?"

"Impossible!" Tails cried. "That would mean Sonic and Robotnik would have-"

"Look, I meant to explain it to you guys when you were older, but-" Sonic tried, but didn't get very far.

"Who are you people?" Kintobor stared at the general assembly of madmen aghast, the young Sonic behind him still trying to fight his way out.

"Look, it don't matter who they are, I'm still gonna throw'em out on their stinkin'-!"

"You are too late, Sonic! I am going to kill your younger self now, and not even I will be able to stop me!" Ivo Robotnik shouted, moving towards the pair from the past.

"ROBOTNIK!" The Doctor hollered over the general noise breaking out, trying to attract the moustache's attention. "This is important, whatever you do, don't touch your younger self or-!"

Robotnik shoved Kintobor rudely out of the way to point his blaster at twelve-year-old Sonic. And at the same time, the air suddenly parted with a brilliantly red flash, a pterodactyl-like giant monster appearing to screech and devour young Sonic and Kintobor in just one bite.

"Oh, brilliant!" snapped the Doctor.

xxx

"The sofa! Push the sofa against the door!" the Doctor commanded.

"But that won't keep them out for long!" Amy cried, pointing towards the wooden door that was being abused by scratches and ramming attacks from the other side.

"Oh, believe me, sofas can work wonders against aliens. If nothing else, you can hide behind them," the Doctor assured her absent-mindedly, fiddling with the consoles against the walls.

The rest of the time-travellers were standing around the room, a transparent Sonic shouting at an equally transparent Robotnik who had just had his laser blaster confiscated and Tails staring petrified at the surveillance screens showing the rest of the laboratory complex where the pterodactyl-like monsters were now running rampant and screeching for more prey. The only ones actually doing what the Doctor had asked were Rose and the black hedgehog Shadow, pushing the demanded furniture against the door to at least keep this room safe.

"That blue hedgehog and imminent insanity. Why, oh why do these two always have to go together?" Shadow grumbled as he gave the sofa a final shove, his small frame surprisingly hiding an enormous amount of strength.

"Wh-what are these things?" Tails stammered, pointing at the creatures on the screens that had appeared out of nowhere. They were covered in brown scales and had a slim body, ending in a long, thorny tail. Any legs were missing, but they sprouted two pairs of arms reminiscent of a praying mantis, as well as a couple of jagged, leathery, reptilian wings with elongated bones poking from the membranes. Their heads were triangular in shape with a pointy beak, two glowing red eyes glaring from their sunken depths, and a pair of horn-like protrusions jutting out to the sides. But the feature that really attracted your attention was the giant pair of gaping jaws each of them had embedded squarely in the chest.

"Reapers," said the Doctor. "They are attracted to temporal paradoxes that damage the time line. Ever since Robotnik went back in time to rid himself of the reason to ever go back in the first place, he opened a wound in time. These things are like bacteria, swarming around the wound, trying to sterilize it by consuming everything inside. Namely, us. And when Robotnik right now created another paradox by touching his younger self, he basically held up a great big sign for them to materialize right here. Now they will continue to hunt until we get this fixed."

"You hear that? This is all your fault!" Sonic scathed at this point, fuming in anger at the scientist.

"Silence, rodent, or I-!"

"Or what, Egghead? You gonna kill me? Oh wait, you already did! You lunatic turned us both transparent!"

"This was an unpredicted side-effect, Sonic, and I couldn't possible have foreseen-"

"You were meddling with TIME! Of course things were gonna go pear-shaped! AND you killed my friend Kintobor! AGAIN!"

"Just to remind you, my little hedgehog, back then it was you who thankfully ended the existence of my pitiful earlier-" Robotnik drawled, but a transparent gloved fist hitting a like-wise see-through giant belly ended his statement prematurely.

"Don't you dare mention it!"

"Oomph! You insolent, spiky pest-!"

"Say what, blubberbutt?"

"Imbecile needlemouse!"

"Bolts-for-brains!"

"Low-life -!"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP!" the rest of the trapped adventurers roared at this point, thankfully finally silencing the hedgehog and evil scientist. Sonic reluctantly released the ghost-like nose he'd been twisting and a grumbling Robotnik stopped pulling at the transparent blue ears, both combatants glaring at each other.

Then:

"He started it!"

"No, you!"

"I, I – nonono, I can't believe this," muttered the Doctor at this, regarding the arguing pair as one might eye a tap-dancing troupe atop a minefield, "Are, are you both aware that you're technically dead?" he asked, his voice high-pitched and slightly hysterical.

"What?!" Robotnik snapped. "Don't be daft, man, I'm still alive. This is nothing but a minor setback," the human brushed the Time Lord off.

"A minor setback? The reaper killed your earlier self! Not to mention, killed Sonic. You're both nothing but illogical fluctuating quantum possibilities now, you went and got your younger self absorbed, devoured by the reapers before you were even old enough to steal my TARDIS and summon the reapers in the first place. Time at the moment is not a wibbly-wobbly ball any more, it's a lump of bloody Swiss cheese! And now you argue while the time line of this planet is about to collapse!" He paused in his high-speed babble to give the rest of the Sapients a bewildered stare. "Are they always like this?"

"Been there, done that, bought the earplugs, alien," Shadow dead-panned. "What can we do to get out of this?"

"I need to get inside the TARDIS first before we have any chance of repairing the damage to the time vortex," the Doctor muttered through gritted teeth. He turned to Robotnik and looking at the Time Lord's ancient dark eyes, the human realized that facing all of the combined reapers might have been a smarter idea than to antagonize this time-traveller from Gallifrey. It was almost as if there seemed to be echoes about the Time Lord when he stared at you like this, whispers and half-heard words across time and from planets that were no more, and your mind shivered and told you tales of fire and blood in a war long past and about a storm raging at the heart of the universe...

"The key to my ship. Now," the Doctor said tonelessly, and held out his hand. Robotnik reached into his red jacket and handed the silver pendant over without resistance. The Time Lord's fingers closed over it with a sense of determination, the moment gone as quickly as it had come.

"When we saw her out there, her interior dimensions were still inside," he mumbled, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and then proceeded to hold both items against each other. One of the reapers screeched again and hurled itself against the door with a sickening crack, but he didn't seem to notice it. "Now, with any luck I can summon her right back to us…"

The screwdriver began to hum and the TARDIS key vibrated with its resonance, glowing gold. For the first time since their arrival, the Doctor began to show just the tiniest of smiles and Rose already tried to discern any blue box-shapes fading into existence...just before the Time Lord suddenly gasped in pain and stumbled backwards, the connection obviously broken.

"Ahh – what…?!"

"Doctor!" Rose cried, grabbing out to catch him and Sonic's and Shadow's gazes immediately whipped toward Robotnik, but the fat scientist hadn't done anything.

"Are-are you okay?" Amy questioned, jade eyes concerned. The Doctor meanwhile had got back his footing and was only holding his head with one hand. "Yeah, I'm fine…but the TARDIS isn't." He raised his gaze again and when he spoke to Robotnik next, it was through gritted teeth, his voice as low as it was serious.

"What have you done to her?"

"I…" Robotnik tried to stumble backwards from the suddenly advancing Doctor, but there was no way out of the room. His bulk slammed into the wall.

"You are not even a Time Lord. You should never have been able to fly her. WHAT have you done to her!" the time-traveller barked, barely restraining his fury now, but at that very second, the wooden door of their saferoom finally succumbed to the attack and two of the reapers burst inside, flailing their wings with a battle screech.

"Not again," breathed the Doctor, eyes wide. "Rose, get behind me. If there's anyone they want it's m-"

"CHAOS SPEAR!"

The creatures didn't even have time to scream before they exploded. Shadow raised an eye ridge at the Doctor.

The Doctor opened his mouth. The Doctor closed his mouth. Then he took a breath and gave a tiny nod. "Or that. Yeah."

"Well, if this TARDIS can't come to us, we have to go out there again. It's only a matter of time before their friends arrive here, anyway!" Amy cried, pointing at the free doorway. The Time Lord seemed to consider this option. Then he gave Sonic a sideways look.

"You up for running?"

The blue hedgehog grinned from ear to ear. "Always."

Only two seconds later, the entire troupe was already dashing madly back to the stairs that led outside, only Tails and Rose privately wondering whether their respective friends and heroes really needed someone else to encourage them of all things.

"Right." The Doctor waited until the last of them had spilled out onto the meadow in front of the rock entrance where the TARDIS awaited them, then immediately slammed the door shut to hopefully keep the rest of the reapers contained in the laboratory. Rose already tugged at his sleeve.

"Doctor…"

"One moment, Rose, I-"

"There's a tear in the sky," Tails mused, his tone oddly light.

The Time Lord looked up, but that didn't change much of what Tails had said. Right across the stormy grey clouds cut a giant black rip with swirling vortexes and storms of fire inside. Everyone of their little group, including Robotnik was staring at it with their eyes wide open.

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded, squinting a little. "This planet's time line is about to go pop if we don't do anything about it. This rift will swallow it whole."

"It looks like the end of days…" Amy whimpered, grabbing Sonic's hand in fright. For once, the blue hedgehog didn't resist. Rose suddenly shrieked.

"Oh my god, look! Mobius is already breaking apart!" She pointed at a giant piece of land in the sky, floating seemingly toward the rift.

Sonic frowned. "Err, no. That's actually supposed to be there. Angel Island, that one, wanders around a bit. Twelve-year old Knux is probably having a heart attack up there with that rift-thing."

"I hope the reapers didn't get him," Tails muttered fearfully, but the Doctor interrupted them, finally having inserted the TARDIS key into its lock.

"Well, if we don't get inside, they're gonna get us. So come in, even you," he added toward Robotnik with a scowl. The human scientist however, suddenly seemed rather reluctant.

"Err, about that ship of yours…"

The Doctor opened the doors, stepped inside and then froze on the spot.

"What?"

"Doctor?" Rose came up after him, but also stopped and stared as soon as she'd entered.

Tails and Amy hesitantly followed, with Sonic, Shadow and Robotnik bringing up the rear, all of them except Sonic and Robotnik staring in wonder. The Doctor meanwhile had dashed over to the console, now frantically pushing non-reactive buttons and levers that suddenly looked so, so unfamiliar.

"This is impossible," he muttered, "He didn't recalibrate it, no human could, but-"

"What happened to her?" Rose stared at her suddenly strange surroundings, Robotnik noticeably still slouching in the door as if he really didn't want to be seen right now.

But then again, with the golden shining coral reef walls and the bluish light from the column gone and everything replaced by cold, silver metal plates and computers screens, bathed in glaring neon light the Doctor was too busy staring at this mechanized nightmare of his ship than to actually pay any attention to the obese human.

"She's dying!" he shouted. "What-? How…?!"

The assorted junkyard that usually made up the console boards was gone, replaced by ordinary keyboards and switches arranged in straight rows. The tubes that had sometimes been hanging around and always been softly pulsating had disappeared, in their place now orderly cables. And the rhythm of the column, the pumping of the heart of the TARDIS was barely audible now.

"I think Eggman's gone and roboticized your ship," Sonic said quietly. "Sorry."

"Wow!" Tails said, not really having listened at all. "It's bigger on the inside!"

To be continued...

Hi there! Still reading? :D Hope you liked the new chapter, once again thanks to petite-dreamer for her wonderful beta-work (this time she actually had to fix grammar, how embarassing XD)^^ The Sonic stuff is 100% Fleetway canon, btw. Non DW watchers, you can actually find pictures of those reaper things on the 'net. ;) anyone who wants to know more about them than what the Doctor told us so far is invited to check out the Episode 'Father's Day' from series 1 of DW. Thrilling adventure, to be sure, and all available on faithful youtube.^^ But of course, far from the threat only coming from the Whoniverse, our friends now also have to deal with the terrors of a roboticizer! Apparently you can enslave a TARDIS. :P If you read, please review? ;)