Chapter 14

Battle Ground

The metal restraints on her wrists and head were nipping her skin, which was irritating her. Thankfully the last Zed-Head had run out of ammo and it didn't occur to him to reload. Instead there was just a series of clicks and shuffling feet coming from somewhere behind her, which for some reason she found more unnerving than the sound of gunshots. She was still trying to figure out what had just happened. One minute the Doctor is being a total jerk, the next everyone is shooting guns into the air like they were at some hillbilly pig competition. Apparently that creep Crowe had got a bullet, along with the majority of the Zed-Heads. It was a miracle she hadn't received one either.

She frowned as she recalled what the Doctor had said to her. Why the hell would he say those things? Had he been trying to make her angry? Did he want her to get more hysterical…?

'Of course!' she cried. 'You're a bloody smart arse, Doctor!'

She recalled what he had said about what she was capable of shortly after their first meeting, in the cafe one week in the future. Controlling emotions. She had caused the Zed-Heads to go off like that. They had absorbed her anger and just goen insane. That's why her head had glowed like that. She had just caused all of this.

'Oh wow…' she mumbled. 'I did this.'

There was a sudden clunking and clanging somewhere to her left and she tried to turn her head, but it was impossible. She listened for a moment, and then heard footsteps. 'Is that you Doctor?'

'The one and only.' The familiar voice replied. His face filled her vision and he grinned. 'Are you still in one piece?'

She frowned. 'Can you get me out of here please? I have neck cramp.'

With a smile, the Doctor moved out of her line of sight again. A moment later, she felt the pressure lighted on her head and she lifted it, wincing at the audible crack in her neck. Then her hands were released, and then her legs. Slowly, and with help from the Doctor, she returned to an upright, standing position.

'Are you okay?' he asked, his expression concerned. Ashley frowned and punched him in the shoulder. He recoiled with raised eyebrows. 'Ow!' he cried. 'What was that for?'

'For saying I can't butter bread properly.' She scowled, rubbing her wrist. 'I get that you only said it to annoy me so for the-' She pointed at her head and pulled a face. '-thing...but it was still unnecessary.'

The Doctor rubbed his shoulder. 'Okay I'm sorry.' He rolled his eyes. 'And now can we proceed with leaving if you're done stropping?'

'I suppose.' Ashley sulked. 'Although if we'd left when I had said we wouldn't have even got into this mess in the first place.'

The Doctor glanced around, his expression hardening. 'Where's Crowe?' he asked.

Ashley looked around. 'What?'

'He was on the floor when I left that room…' The Doctor looked around, but he only saw dead guards and the remaining live guard who was now standing motionless off to one side. 'He'd been shot.'

Ashley looked down at her feet. With a grimace, she stepped out of the bloody puddle. 'Oh Christ…' she muttered.

The Doctor looked down. The puddle was big, but there was no body anywhere near it. A trail of blood lead towards a single door that stood open on the far side of the room. Beyond it was only darkness. The Doctor took Ashley's hand and began to lead her away to the door he had entered in.

'We're leaving now.' he confirmed.

'Uh-huh.' Ashley nodded. 'About time too.'

As they left into the corridor, the lights suddenly flashed off. For a split second, they were plunged into darkness. An ice blue light quickly replaced it and a droning alarm began to sound.

'This is the activation of evacuation protocol 006001,' a droning female voice informed them. 'Please gather at the appropriate location for your station and await transportation.'

Ashley looked to the Doctor with wide eyes. 'Why is the place being evacuated?'

'Because the holding bay has been completely breached.' The Doctor replied. 'The other prisoners must be fighting there way out.'

As if on cue, gunshots echoed up the corridor, following by yells and screams. The Doctor tightened his grip on Ashley's hand and dragged her in the opposite direction.

'Don't you dare stop running!' he yelled back to her. 'Don't you stop for anything!'

'You're telling me is if I'm going to stop to clip my toenails!' Ashley cried back. 'You don't really think I'm stupid, do you?'

The Doctor hesitated. 'Can we talk about this later?'

Ashley squeezed his hand hard but didn't say anything else. They ran on, following the turning corridors and headed up a flight of stairs until they exploded into a familiar room.

'Oh great,' Ashley groaned. 'We're in the flesh-eating spider room.'

'Keep moving. There's no reason to stop-'

'You're not going to take this away from me, Doctor.' A raspy voice hissed.

Both the Doctor and Ashley looked around to see Crowe leaning against the wall on the far side of the room, his face pale and his hands clamped on the bloody mess on his stomach. He lumbered forwards a few steps and then stopped.

'Do you… Do you know just how long I've been l… looking for her?' Under the icy blue light his eye sockets looked almost hollow and his skin was slick with sweat.

The Doctor took a step towards him, hand outstretched. 'I can help you. It doesn't have to be like this. You don't need her.'

Crowe laughed. A thin line of blood ran down his chin. 'Need? It's all about needing with you people, isn't it? It's not a case of needing at all, Doctor. I don't need to be able to control people's emotions. I want to be able to. Can you imagine what you could do with such a thing? I've spent years controlling my emotions for when I finally found her. I can make myself ecstatically happy to terribly depressed in a blink of an eye. I can break people without even making the effort. I can put the fear of God into them in a second.' He shot a look at Ashley. 'When is she ever going to need it? She doesn't even understand how it works. You and I, Doctor… we're men of understanding.'

'I don't understand you.' The Doctor replied, shaking his head. 'And what are you going to do with that power now, anyway? You're dying.'

Crowe chuckled. 'You think that's the only thing she's capable of, Doctor?' He shook his head and tutted. 'I don't believe you did your homework correctly. Not that it matters anymore.'

With a flick of his wrist, Ashley shot across the room, slamming hard into the far wall. She crumpled to the floor, barely conscious. The Doctor turned to her, only to be grabbed from behind by Crowe. Despite the near-fatal bullet wound in his stomach, Crowe still harnessed a lot of strength. He dragged the Doctor backwards, swinging him around.

'You're not going to ruin this for me!' Crowe yelled into his ear. 'Not after all this time!'

The Doctor tried to pull Crowe's hands from around his neck but he couldn't. His face began to go red as he found it harder and harder to breathe. He saw a work bench coming at him fast and immediately knew what Crowe was doing. Before he had a chance to slam the Doctor's face onto the surface, the Doctor pushed his hands on the underside of the table, stopping himself from getting any closer. In his ear, Crowe grunted, pushing down on the Doctor with all his strength. A bead of sweat dropped from the Doctor's nose onto the surface.

Immediately, dozens of Hygiene Control bots scurried into view to sanitize the area.

'Ashley!' The Doctor yelled, feeling himself getting closer to the small robots. 'I could do with some help here!'

On the floor on the other side of the room, Ashley sat up and groaned. Her head was throbbing. She looked around groggily to see the struggle going on. She scrambled to her feet unsteadily and lumbered towards them. Her feet tripped and her hand slammed on the workbench to steady herself. Dozens of the tiny robots immediately engulfed her hand and she began to shake them frantically. A few fell off but there were still a lot of them hanging on.

'Ashley!' the Doctor yelled again, this time more urgently.

She sprinted towards them and grabbed Crowe's face with her spider-bot covered hand and hauled him back off the Doctor. Immediately Crowe yelled out shrilly and released the Doctor. He batted at his face frantically, screaming in agony. The Doctor grabbed Ashley by the top of her arm and draggedher across the lab.

'My arm!' she screeched as the robots scurried all over her skin. 'Doctor, my arm!'

The Doctor nodded. 'I know, I know!'

He dragged her to a booth and pushed aside the sliding door. He shoved her inside and abruptly turned a knob on the wall. Ashley yelled out at the cold liquid that drenched her. The tiny robots dropped off her and washed away down the drain. They both stared at each other for a moment in silence. Then the Doctor smiled weakly.

'You don't think there would be something so dangerous in the lab without something to get them off, would you?' he asked.

Ashley blinked at him, water dripping from her and then she looked towards Crowe. He was writhing on the floor, his hands covering his face as he screamed in agony.

'We don't need to see that.' The Doctor mumbled, pulling Ashley towards the door.

She followed him without hesitation, dripping wet from the shower. Before they slipped away through the door she glanced back over her shoulder at Crowe. He was glaring after them, the skin on the left side of his face completely eaten away.

'You have got to be kidding me.' The Doctor groaned as they skidded to a halt at the doors that lead out onto the barren land outside. Beside him, Ashley let out a groan.

'Someone hates us,' she sighed. 'Do you know that?'

'A lot of people hate me.' The Doctor nodded in agreement.

The scene before them looked like something taken from an epic movie. There were hundreds of people fighting. The Zed-Heads against the prisoners. Guns were going off everywhere. People dropped everywhere. There were bodies everywhere. Ashley was disgusted to see some of the prisoners, who were probably volunteers, attacking their own. But this didn't stop the Zed-Heads from shooting them, however.

'So how are we going to do this?' Ashley asked, her heart pounding like a drum in her chest.

The Doctor mused for a moment. 'Weeeell… I think we're just going to have to run for it.'

'More running?' Ashley whined.

The Doctor took her hand. 'Come on, it's good for you!'

They ran into the bloodshed with their heads lowered. Ashley had no idea where they were going but she carried on anyway. Someone slammed into the side of her and she fell to the ground hard. She glanced up to see a familiar green face staring back at her. His eyes bulged, unseeing, and his blonde hair was matted with blood. Ashley managed a small squeak before the Doctor hauled her to her feet again.

'There's no time for that!' he yelled over the sounds of the battle. 'Get those knees up, okay?'

Ashley was up and running again before he finished speaking. She looked ahead and saw that he was heading for one of the black vehicles that had brought them here. She picked up the pace, knowing that once they were inside, they were home free. She couldn't wait to get back home. Even the thought of Manny bitching about the bread was a welcome thought to this madness. She was actually looking forward to calling the landlord to tell him about the bust-up back door. Hell, she would even fix it herself-

Something else slammed into her and she shot backwards. Her shoulder suddenly felt extremely warm, and all of a sudden she was in intense pain. She looked to see blood seeping into her clothes. She cried out in shock, catching the Doctor's attention who hadn't noticed what had happened.

'Doctor!' she cried. 'Oh my God! Oh Christ someone shot me!'

The Doctor was beside her pulling her up again. 'Keep moving!' he told her. 'Come on, I told you to get those knees up!'

'My shoulder!'

'You don't run with your shoulders!'

The Doctor slung her good arm around his shoulders and practically carried her to the nearest vehicle. It was smaller than the truck they had arrived in – more along the size of a minibus. They ran into the back, which was already open, and the Doctor slammed his palm on the button to close the doors behind them. Before they had even shut fully he knelt beside her and pulled her shirt down over her arm to expose her shoulder. Ashley whimpered as she looked at the blackened, bloody hole.

'I don't bloody believe this!' she cried.

'It's fine,' the Doctor told her. 'Don't worry. We'll get you to a hospital and you'll be fine, I promise.' He glanced around and grabbed a cloth that was lying nearby. It looked dirty and grimy but he pressed it against her shoulder anyway. She screamed out in pain.

'Oh God you're heading for one hell of a punch, mister!' she roared.

The Doctor grinned at her fondly. 'Oh you're special, do you know that?'

She glared at him, her hair still soaked. Her makeup – or what was left of it – was streaked down her cheeks. He just grinned back and got to his feet.

'Hold that down hard,' he told her. 'Hard as you can. We'll be out of here in no time.'

Ashley nodded, too exhausted and in too much pain to give in any kind of response. A moment later and the Doctor was behind the wheel and tearing away from the Government building looming over them.