Chapter 10 - Hybras
Thud.
"Right," the Doctor said, turning from the TARDIS console. "Now that we're on Hybras, we need a plan."
"Well, since No.1 has lived on Hybras for almost all of his life, I suggest he stays here and directs the rest of us – assuming of course, that this remarkable machine of yours has some communication devices." said Artemis.
"Got just the thing!" the Doctor said happily, and he ducked underneath the console, opened a compartment, and withdrew several pairs of what looked like ordinary reading glasses.
Holly raised an eyebrow. "Glasses? For all your technological advancement, you're giving us glasses?"
"Ah, you see, they may look like glasses, but they're not really. I can link them to the TARDIS' scanner screen," he patted the television-like device suspended above the console, "allowing me and No.1 to see everything you do."
"Pardon me if I don't exactly explode with amazement," cut in Foaly. "But I feel like this is the time to say that I've already developed something far superior – the iris cam. It's a mechanical contact lens that can zoom in, has different filters including x-ray, and can read your vitals."
Amy giggled, causing the Doctor to shoot her a look before scowling. "I bet they can't send and receive sound," he huffed.
Foaly sighed, defeated once again by the Doctor's superior technology. "Shall we call it a draw?" he offered. He'd have to work on adding a microphone to the list of gadgets crammed in the iris-cam – the reliance on an earpiece to relay sound was a major problem when partaking in covert operations, as shown during the Spiro Needle operation.
Holly smirked.
"Moving on," Artemis said quickly, taking a pair of the glasses. "We have eight dishes, and there are nine of us. However, since the Doctor and No1 need to remain behind to oversee operations here, that leaves only seven -"
"Six," interrupted Minerva. "I think Mister Foaly should remain too, as he is the only one who really knows how his equipment works, and by staying in here, he can be with all of us at once."
Foaly scratched his chin. "That is a good idea; I could stay here and help the Doctor control the power feed and maintain the effect, but I need a link back to the TARDIS, in order to activate them."
"No problem," said the Doctor, tapping his jacket just hard enough that the soft 'tink' of the sonic screwdriver could be heard.
"There's one thing we haven't considered yet," said No.1 hurriedly, as Foaly looked as though he was about to faint again. "Knowing Abbot, the leader of the demons, we'll probably encounter some sort of resistance against us placing the dishes, and most likely against the dishes themselves, once they've been placed."
"I think we should split up," commented Butler, his combat experience coming into play, "into two groups, with one person who actually understands the technology in each group, with the rest acting as bodyguards."
"An excellent suggestion, Butler," said Artemis. "I shall, of course, go with you, while Holly, would you mind looking after Minerva?"
"Hey," said Rory. "What about us?"
Butler frowned. "I don't think you two should come, you'll be too much of a liability."
"Well, that's where you're wrong, mister," said Amy confidently, walking up to Butler and poking him in the chest. "Rory's the Last Centurion; he waited two thousand years to make sure I was safe. So I'm telling you: we're going."
Butler sighed and relented, he wasn't going to stop the two kids if they wanted to throw themselves into danger. 'Just like Artemis,' he thought with a small chuckle.
"In that case, we'll split into three groups, Butler and I; Minerva and Holly; and Amy and Rory," Artemis said.
"But Amy doesn't know anything about the People's technology," Holly pointed out.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," said the Doctor, looking up from sonicking the dishes. "She's very resourceful, and with both Foaly and I giving her instructions, she'll figure it all out."
Holly looked as though she wanted to argue, but Artemis tapped her on the shoulder.
"We have to trust their judgement, Holly. Who knows what they've been through before now?" he said gently
Holly paused, then nodded.
"Now," said Minerva, "about protecting the dishes once we've placed them, am I correct in thinking that it would be possible to siphon off a little of the dish's own output and channel it around itself, thus protecting it?"
Foaly wagged a finger at the French girl. "You're sharp, mud girl, I'll give you that! Yes, with the right calibration, what you said should be possible; I'll start the calibrations right now." He trotted down the stairs and joined the Doctor in fiddling with the dishes, his hindquarters almost coming into contact with Billy Kong, who was still stuck in the mini Time Lock.
"Watch it!" the Doctor called. "Touch him, and you get stuck in the Time Lock too!"
Foaly backed nervously away from Kong's frozen form. Once he was a sufficient distance away, he bent down and began calibrating the dishes.
Amy had a sudden thought and moved closer to Rory. "You should probably go and get changed, dear," she whispered into Rory's ear.
"Oh no, not the Roman stuff," her husband said, his cheeks going red.
"Of course; the Last Centurion needs to strike fear into the hearts of the demons...not to mention look very hot for his even hotter wife."
Rory nodded. "Point taken," he said. "I'm just, uh, getting changed," he announced to ther others, and he walked off to the TARDIS' wardrobe as fast as he could without running, trying to appear inconspicuous to the rest of the TARDIS' current inhabitants.
The TARDIS' door creaked open. Rory's head emerged to look around at a surprisingly green landscape; grass covered the ground, and a few trees were dotted here and there. Above him, the sky glowed with the reddish hue of sunset.
"It's alright, it's safe," he called, stepping from the TARDIS. Moments later, Amy, Artemis, Butler, Holly and Minerva emerged behind him.
"Mon dieu!" Minerva breathed in shock, looking back at the TARDIS' police box exterior. "It is the police telephone box from Sicily! But how can its interior dimensions be so much bigger than the exterior ones?"
Rory placed a hand on her shoulder. "Trust me, you really don't want to know," he warned. "Ask the Doctor, and you'll end up drooling and nodding your head; nothing he says he never makes sense."
"To you," Minerva said simply.
"To anyone, actually," he replied pointedly.
"Mmm," said Minerva, "I'll have to prove you wrong about that."
Rory shrugged, a gesture which Minerva interpreted as meaning 'on your head, be it'.
"So, tell me again: why exactly is Rory dressed up as a roman?" Holly said, looking at Rory as though he were mad for dressing in such clothes.
Rory blushed. "It's what Amy calls my 'tough costume', she makes me wear it when she wants to impress or intimidate people."
Holly nodded condescendingly, trying desperately not to laugh.
"Hmm," mused Artemis. "I've found that my suits are very effective at intimidating people. I think it's something to do with the designer brand."
"Oi!" Amy said, swanning over to her husband and pecking him on the lips. "This is his fashion sense at its best."
"My dad would disagree, you know," Rory said as he went in for another kiss.
"Oh, come on, Ponds; how do you two even breathe!" the Doctor said, emerging from the TARDIS to dump the receiver dishes unceremoniously on the ground. Tapping his companions on the shoulder to get their attention, he said, "Put your glasses on now, and I'll just check to make sure everything's working." He entered the TARDIS.
Artemis, Minerva and Amy obeyed.
"Hello, hello, can everyone hear me?" The Doctor's voice was emitted from tiny speakers in the glasses' rims a moment later. "'Cause I can see you. Well, not see you exactly, more like I can see what you're seeing. And hear what you're hearing too. And what you're saying, when you start talking. But you won't know what I'm saying unless you can hear me, so: can you hear me?"
Amy grimaced apologetically at Amy and Minerva. "He does that a lot," she whispered.
"What was that, Pond?"
"Nothing," she said innocently as Holly rolled her eyes. "We can all hear you. Crystal clear."
"Good."
Foaly's voice replaced the Doctor's. "Okay, you've got to place five receiver dishes to place, and if you want to do it without attracting the demons' attention, you better get going. Unfortunately, since there are only three groups, two of you will have to take two..."
"I'll take the extra ones," Butler volunteered immediately, and he walked over to the pile of receiver dishes and effortlessly lugged three of them over his back.
"Mister Foaly, is there any particular shape the dishes should form; a pentagram, perhaps?" Minerva asked.
"Normally, yes," the centaur replied. "But this time I'm not sure...Doctor?"
"Oh, just walk in a direction until you find the edge of the island, then just dump the dish there; that'll be fine. Only don't fall off the edge, who knows where you'll end up...or when," the Doctor warned. "Or if you'd even survive the trip..."
Silence.
"Time to go, then," said Holly awkwardly. "Minerva and I'll go north. Amy, you and Rory go east; Artemis, you and Butler can go south-west, south-east and east."
Artemis sighed. "That's a lot of walking," he noted.
"Hey, don't go for all I care," said Holly, shrugging. "But this is a team effort, if you don't go, the probability of us failing increases."
Artemis decided that now was not the time to explain that he preferred working alone.
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor, No.1 and Foaly watched the retreating forms of their friends on the scanner screen.
"I hope they manage to get the job done," No.1 said worriedly. "If Abbott finds out about all this, he could be a big problem."
"They'll be fine," the Doctor said reassuringly, clapping a hand on the young demon's shoulder. "Now, is there a place where the spell keeping Hybras here is the strongest?"
No.1 bit his lip, thinking. "That would be the volcano," he said eventually. "That's where the lunar attraction is the strongest."
"Too easy!" the Doctor cried, releasing the TARDIS handbrake, then running madly around the console, flicking switches and pulling levers. "Just a short hop and," he pushed the handbrake into the 'on' position, jumped down the stairs and flung open the doors.
A Few Minutes Earlier...
Leon Abbot returned to his own chair at the head of the lodge. The chair was high-backed and made from various animal parts. He settled into it, paddling the armrests with his palms.
"I love this chair," he said. "Actually, it's more of a throne than a chair, which brings me to our main business here today." Abbot reached under a leather flap in the chair and pulled out a roughly fashioned bronze crown.
"I think it's about time the Council declared me king for life," he said, fixing the crown on his head.
Most of the Council had been mesmerised by Abbot so often and for so long that they accepted the suggestion as if it were a royal decree, but some of the younger ones shuddered with violent spasms as their true beliefs wrestled with this new repugnant idea. Their struggles didn't last long. Abbot's suggestion spread like a virus through their conscious and subconscious, subduing revolution wherever it was found.
Abbot adjusted his crown slightly. "Enough debate. All in favour, say graaargh!"
"GRAAARGH!" howled the demons, battering the table with gauntlets and swords.
"All hail King Leon," prompted Abbot.
"ALL HAIL KING LEON!" mimicked the Council like trained parrots.
The adulation was interrupted by a faint wheezing, groaning sound. Abbot frowned. Where was that noise coming from?
Then, despite everything he'd experienced in his life so far, his jaw dropped. For right in front of him, at the other end of the lodge, a blue box was materialising into existence. Abbot and the Council watched in amazement as the box solidified in time with the beat of the wheezing, groaning sound, which was growing steadily louder.
Thud.
The noise stopped; the box didn't move.
Abbot and the other demons continued staring at the box in shock when the doors opened.
"The volcan – oh," the human trailed off.
Silence.
Abbot was amazed. Since when did humans have technology so advanced they could travel to Hybras and appear out of thin air? They certainly hadn't been able to do that when he'd been flung ten thousand years into the future; this human and his box must be from an even further point in their future.
"What's going on down there?" a voice called from inside the box.
"Well, um, I think I made a...slight error in the navigation system..." the human replied, wincing.
This was enough for Abbot to regain his composure.
"HUMAN!" he roared, pointing at the man standing in the doorway of the box. "Kill it!"
"Graaagh!" cried the enthralled Council, and they grabbed their gauntlets and swords charged towards the defenceless creature.
The human's eyes widened and he quickly stepped back and shut the blue box's doors. Seconds later, the wheezing, groaning sound began again, and the box vanished.
"Assemble the tribe and search the island, where there's one human, there's always more!" ordered Abbot.
"Graaagh!" shouted the Council, and they ran out of the lodge, waving their weapons madly.
Abbot clenched his fist. So, the humans had finally found Hybras, had they? Well, he, Leon Abbot, saviour of demonkind, wasn't about to let them take control of the island. He stroked the hilt of his sword. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Smiling evilly, he whipped off his crown, replaced it in its compartment under his throne, and followed the Council out of the lodge.
Author's note: small excerpt taken from Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony.