(Disclaimer- If a Cybermat attacks you, it's probably not a good idea to try to electrocute it with a cricket bat.)
Chapter Eleven- High Chance of Death
And now back to Doctor Who: Into the Vortex
The Doctor poked his head out of the TARDIS, and immediately withdrew it.
"Vacuum cleaner," he demanded. Rose handed it over, and he poked the extendable nozzle outside, and switched it on. There was a brief rush of air, and about three Umbras were sucked into it. He threw it into a disposal bin, and the Umbras were sent down to a quarantine area.
"Easy enough," Rose grinned. "What's next?"
"There's a couple of unidentified aliens out there, plus a couple of Cybermen, and white squat-thing that I know, but can't remember what it is. It has claws," he added as an afterthought.
"Claws. Not nice. Bad. Not nice."
"So."
"So.
"So..."
"So... we charge them?"
"Yes, we charge them. And not on a stupid human credit card, either."
"What's so bad about credit cards?"
"They're, well, they're all..."
"Human?"
"Yes!"
"Hey, you love us, and you'd do anything for us, remember?"
"Yes, but credit cards are just evil."
"Focus. The Bridge, remember?"
They gathered up the various weapons, explosives, and pointy things, and strapped them to their backs, into their pockets, and any other place they could put them. Rose sucked in a deep breath.
"Before we do this..."
"Yes?"
"I just want you to know that this was fantastic. Every single moment of it."
He smiled at her, and she couldn't help but smile back.
"It's not as if we're going to die."
She laughed slightly. "Yeah, I guess it was kinda stupid of me."
"No, it wasn't stupid at all."
There was a short awkward silence in the TARDIS, and Rose coughed.
"Right. Let's do this."
"Right."
The Doctor flung open the doors of the TARDIS, and they stormed outside. Almost immediately, they were set upon by a hairy, evil-looking thing. Rose grabbed the cricket bat, and set about whacking it as hard as she could. The Doctor was preoccupied with finding a frequency on the sonic to deter a pack of beetles.
The beetles just happened to be carnivorous.
Rose finished up with whacking the hairy monster, and she kicked it into the corner. Bat aloft, she moved swiftly forwards, and was mobbed by a pack of silver mice. With teeth. And glowing red eyes.
"What are these things?" she yelled across to the Doctor, using the spiky thing she had found to hold them back.
"Cybermats," he called back, having finally found the right frequency to get rid of the beetles. They lay on their backs in some strange imitation of black leaves. "You may want to shock them electrically."
Saying that, he moved forward into a pack of Ood. Or whatever the collective term for Ood is, anyway. Muttering vague 'sorry's in their direction, he continued making his way closer and closer to the Bridge. He was now about 10 metres away.
Rose rummaged about in her bag, still holding the Cybermats back with the pointy thing. One Cybermat leapt up towards her, and she hit it hard with the cricket bat. The Cybermat let out a metallic squeak of pain, and fell to the floor. But the rest of them were getting more bold. Her hand came into contact with some wire cables. The ends were stripped off. She transferred those to the hand gripping the pointy thing, and found a battery. It was a large one, an American E-10. She frowned, desperately trying to remember her high school electronics classes. She was supposed to connect the positive wire to the negative side... right? Nervously backing away, pointy object swinging, she tried to assemble a rudimentary circuit.
A short walk away, the Doctor wasn't faring much better. A Macra was advancing on him, claws clicking. He was trying to distract it with talking, but wasn't having much success.
"You are SUPPOSED to be sentient!" he yelled angrily at it. "This is NOT fair!"
Apparently the Macra didn't care if the situation was fair or not. It was only intent on destroying the intruder- namely, the Doctor.
"Inbreeding," he muttered darkly, and darted underneath it's front legs, aiming on poking it in the stomach with an arrow. The Macra had other ideas. It snatched him up by the leg, leaving him dangling in midair, helpless. It clicked its claws rapidly together and scuttled from side to side in what could only be described as a happy dance.
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "Oh, no, you don't." He aimed the bow- admittedly old fashioned, but still usable- and fired, directly at a pressure point. He had studied alien physiology, and knew exactly where a nerve cluster would be. The Macra collapsed, and he prised himself out from underneath a claw.
"Negative to positive," Rose exclaimed, and there was a crackle of electricity. She had pulled some of the covering off the wire, and now attached that bit to the edge of the cricket around, she allowed the Cybermats to come at her.
Swish- BZZT.
One of the rat-like creatures jittered for a moment in the electrical current, then fell. The others, not really noticing, or perhaps ever caring, continued their rush at her.
Swish- BZZT.
Swish- BZZT.
Swish- BZZT.
She repeated the action over and over, knocking more metallic animals out of the air, away from their deadly flight towards her. She really, really, hoped the battery would last.
Swish- BZZT.
Two more were left, and she readied her bat for the last strikes.
Swish- BZZT.
The last Cybermat seemed to realise that maybe, just maybe, it was in a spot of trouble. It squeaked nervously, and swivelled around, one twice. Rose saw a golden opportunity, and raised the cricket bat up like a golf club.
Swish- BZZT.
The last Cybermat fell, squealing, through the air. Rose laughed in triumph, the adrenaline of the situation buzzing through her veins. She ran towards the Doctor, who was disentangling himself from the claws of what looked like a giant crab.
"What next?" she asked, holding the slightly splintered cricket bat aloft.
"Nice work with the battery," he complimented her. "Next... we blow up the Bridge."
"That, I can handle."
They turned, and were confronted with the sight of a giant stone angel. Rose tilted her head to the side. "Okay, that's not exactly that bad compared to giant crabs and metal rats."
The Doctor's eyes widened. "Rose. Do not even blink."
(A/N:
Okay, that last bit is pretty obvious to anyone who's seen a lot of episodes.
10Rose fluff? No, I didn't write any. You must be hallucinating.
NEXT WEEK: No blinking allowed, and finally- FINALLY- an explosion.
Lotsa love,
~Kitty)