A/N Hello everyone! Earthian here!
This is my first fanfiction in a very long time so I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
This is a oc centered fanfiction with my own character placed into the story, because of another person being there. There will be some things that do change because of her presence. I hope the chapter below is clear enough, and the characters are accurately represented, I will always do my best to portray them in the way they are on the show.
I appreciate constructive criticism, but please no flames, I understand that my oc can be a difficult person to like at first, so I won't get offended if you don't. I mean...I like her, (but I mean, I'm like...bias). I will answer questions about her, she is a original character of mine and all her story and it's contents belong to me...which of course is a great way to hop into what I don't own.
DECLAIMER: I do not own Doctor Who, or any properties associated with it, it belongs to BBC, and all I want to do here is to provide something that others can enjoy.
There had been an explosion. Bright and furious, her face had felt like it would melt off, the pounding of her heard and smell of burning flesh had filled her with panic. Panic which she had not felt to that degree in a while.
It had been a simple experiment, a routine one she did all the time, make more shots, make more shots to live. That had been her motto...one mission for so long she couldn't remember the last time she hadn't been making those shots. Foul as they were when they went in, she needed them to survive.
If she had noticed the beaker's contents getting a little too high...a little too bubbly, then perhaps she could've stopped it before her whole lab went up in flames before her.
The smoke hadn't been what made her pass out, it was the off electrical current that had slung itself at her from one of her long abandoned devices stored in the corners. One she was sure had been off. Almost positive in fact.
Almost, apparently, had not been enough it seemed.
Her head was throbbing when she woke, pounding, banging. Her body ached like she had been in a bad fight with one of her oh so charming neighbors.
Again.
To be fair to her lab and experiments, she had been...bringing in things she really shouldn't have been messing with. Really shouldn't have touched, looked at, or even thought about, but she couldn't help herself, which had been a really bad trait throughout her life. Often earning her many black eyes and split lips.
Though, regardless of what she had been bringing into her lab, regardless of it blowing up in her face, and regardless of her bad traits.
This was not at all how she expected her day to go.
First of all, she was laying on grass, which was odd unto itself, for many reasons, one of which her lab being in the middle of a concrete jungle. Another would be the odd sensation of the grass beneath her, the most she had ever felt of the substance was the dead and dried grass that had often grown through the cracks of the concrete. She found she had a bit of an affinity for that grass, so determined, so rebellious.
But this much grass...this was ridiculous. This grass...so spoiled, it didn't have to fight for anything.
These thoughts only made her pause and gaze around with a sigh, she really was going delirious, thinking about how the non-existent class system of grass.
She sat up and rubbed her forehead with a breath, maybe the explosion had knocked out a bit more of her senses then she had first presumed. Getting to her feet was a slight effort with how her body ached, and with the ever present weight on her back, it did nothing to help her in any way.
Granted they never did anyways.
Taking a deeper breath she found she was far too annoyed with her own musings to allow them to continue. Not that they could anyways, with the sudden disturbance before her.
She had seemingly...appeared in what looked to be a rather residential area, none of course that she was familiar with. In fact the sight was so jarring she had to adjust her glasses and check her pulse to make sure she wasn't dead.
It looked...peaceful.
She rubbed her eyes before recalling it didn't really matter if her eyes were functioning properly. They weren't, they hadn't for about five years now.
A slow growl escaped her at the reminder.
Only for it to be cut off at the sudden appearance of something before her.
She jumped back, the useless things on her back flaring out in response to her panic, she panted and her eyes flickered briefly to her hands, not totally surprised at the gun that sat in them. She usually never remembered pulling it out, just knew it was always there in her hands when she felt threatened.
It was both reassuring and frightening at the same time.
Her eyes flickered up to the present danger before her, this...thing, a grey blur really, a grey, black blur that stood before her, practically motionless, except for the occasional turn of it's head, something she tensed at every time.
However, as she soon realized it was not going to do anything she couldn't counter, she slowly lowered her weapon and gazed at it squinting.
"Oi...what the &*^% are you?" she frowned further when nothing came up around the figure, just a bunch of question marks and weird glitching lines. "Well, your a useless piece of &*$%#" she grumbled before taking a breath and cautiously circling it. Her head still throbbed painfully, which did nothing to improve her mood. She looked around at the ground and picked up a stick before putting one step forward, but not having fully committed by bringing the other foot along.
She lightly prodded the fussy figure before her, only to sometimes find herself encountering a hard metal, and other times feeling like she was pushing her stick through wet concrete. When she pulled it back finally she gazed at the stick to see if there was any residue left on it. But there was nothing. Nothing she could see given her present conditions, if she had her goggles on her then she probably wouldn't have a problem finding something wrong with the stick.
She looked up, only to find nothing, she spun around on her heel looking around wide eyed. Where had it gone?
Frowning best she could, she took a deep breath and grumbled under her breath. She didn't like the knowledge that she probably would have to go into this residential area within the city if she wanted answers.
Kicking the ground with a grumble and growl under her breath she trudged toward the city.
~A~
She hated how many people were out, she hated how many people stared, she had gotten so bothered by it she had turned and snarled at a young couple, the useless and obvious things flaring out on her back, which of course didn't help anything. They had run off, no surprise to anyone.
Ugh, she hated people.
Of course, the whispers followed the stares, some people even whispered 'it's the angel of death! Like in those stories 'member?!' But the hushed 'demon' always followed her.
One thing it did provide her with, was accents, she very clearly knew that she was nowhere near where she lived.
She had never heard of this accent before.
Plus, this place...was so weird, so...different, there were so many bright colored things...colors. The sky...was blue. Yes, people looked frightened, but they didn't glare at her with hate. She fidgeted a few times, normally she wanted fear, she wanted hesitancy, but just...sometimes it got to her.
But, never one to tiptoe around people and their issues and feelings, she approached a man who hadn't turned around and seen her yet. She grabbed his shoulder and turned him around from reading his newspaper, he jerked away and turned to likely tell her off, only to freeze at her appearance, she narrowed her eyes, not surprised, but annoyed nonetheless.
"What the &%#&* is going on? What the heck is that freaky black and grey splotchy thing?" she demanded roughly, he sputtered unable to answer her, and she was about ready to strangle him in frustration. Her head was pounding, and as usual, people were being useless, and stupid.
Her hands twitched and lifted to do just that when…
"When's the next shift?"
The voice attracted her attention and she turned and blinked at the sight, this gave the man the chance to run off wiping the sweat from his brow.
The man who had spoken looked in some ways familiar, and in other ways not. He was tall and thin, dressed in a brown pinstripe suit, hair spiky and all out of sorts, but she couldn't really be one to judge, not really ever being one to put effort into her own hair.
The man however was...odd, something about him struck her with a familiar sort of presence, one she hadn't felt in a long time.
He placed down three metal cones that were linked by thin wires onto the grass, it was then she noticed the playground around the area. Huh. Children, hooray.
"Quarter to. But don't go causing trouble." a blonde older woman spoke, she paused and gazed at the cones on the ground. "What's that lot do?"
She had been wondering much the same, whoever he was, he seemed to know what he was doing.
Which meant he was useful, and could possibly help her figure out what happened to her, and if he didn't do it willingly...well, she had other methods of persuasion…
"Triangulates their point of origin." The man supplied pulling her from the darker thoughts that had crossed through her mind.
"I don't suppose it's the Gelth?" A younger blonde girl questioned him. Yeah, he was definitely the one in charge of this little trio.
"Nah. They were just coming through one little rift. This lot are transposing themselves over the whole planet. Like tracing paper." He supplied simply, still working on the triangulator.
And if she hadn't been interested before...she definitely was now.
She moved closer, leaning on a building wall and watching them arms crossed.
"You're always doing this. Reducing it to science. Why can't it be real? Just think of it, though. All the people we've lost. Our families coming back home. Don't you think it's beautiful?" The woman pleaded her perspective, and she couldn't help but frown a bit at that. So...the things had something to do with dead people...but not really?
"I think it's horrific. Rose, give us a hand." With that conversation ending statement the three of them walked away from the cones, she leaned forward and watched as they entered a large blue box with the words police box written on the top rim, and among other things, but that was the only thing that attracted her attention. She frowned at that. Cops.
She hated law enforcement.
Sighing she made her way over to the cones curiously gazing at them, this was a bit beyond the technology here, she could tell by the cell phones these people used. Old. Wherever this place was, it was clearly not at the technological level her city was on.
But this, this was different, she reached out a hand and lightly stroked the cones, not disillusioned to the fact that she couldn't feel anything through her metal gloves...well, more like gauntlets on her forearms and hands.
It was more of the symbolism of touching the object.
She wished she had any of her examination tools with her, seeing how her glasses were failing at one of their very important jobs. Any one of her tools would've been useful, but she was in her slightly less encumbered attire when she worked.
It felt like a rather awful decision in retrospect.
"Hey! Hey, no, no, no, don't touch that." She was pulled from her internal scolding by that man's voice, she tensed automatically but stood slowly as if bored.
"I'm going to warn you, I often do things that I'm told not to do." He came around the cones giving her enough time to move away before he came to the spot where she had been. She frowned as he examined it like her touch had contaminated it or something. "I don't have acid on my fingers or anything." she grumbled as he stood up to face her, she did not like the fact that she had to look up a bit at him. She wasn't short...but he was tall. Usually she could intimidate with her height, but here she was at a disadvantage. She frowned and flexed her hands before clenching them into fists and stepping back, getting to a comfortable distance between them. The useless things folded up tightly against her back.
He looked at her frowning as he finally seemed to take in her appearance and not the fact that she touched his precious cones. "Are you supposed to be at a con or something?"
At that her brow furrowed, of all the things that people had said to her, that was a first.
"What? Why would you say that?" She questioned with a deep frown, he frowned in return and motioned to his lower face.
"Ya know...with the whole...mask thingy..." at that she frowned further...the mask is what he was fussing over? Really?
Though, if she thought about it, she had gotten good at hiding them, so if he didn't look over her shoulder, then she should be fine.
Not that it mattered of course.
"What if I like to wear it huh?" She countered a bit aggressively, he raised his hands in a bit of surrender, before she crossed her arms, and before he could continue..."the thing ya trying to triangulate, it's the ghosts things yeah?" It hadn't taken long after entering the city and seeing all the newspapers to find out what everyone was calling them.
He nodded slowly staring at her brow furrowed, "yeah..." but then shook his head, "wait, wait, hold up, you don't seem..." he trailed off and shook his head again. "I thought they were all over the world?"
Her brow furrowed deeply, "and how the &*%#$ am I supposed to know that?" She countered with a frown. His brow furrowed again and he opened his mouth to ask her something else when a voice that she recognized belonging to that Rose girl shouted from the blue box.
"Doctor! What's the hold up!?" She turned and looked at the box with a frown as he seemed to snap out of whatever he had been about to say and turned to the cones.
"You'll want to step back." he warned as he turned the machine on, but she stayed put and peered over his shoulder to see what he was doing. Once they were on he turned and looked at the box. "What's the line doing?" he called as the device activated, she turned her attention from the box and to the cones. Making a mental note that his name apparently was 'Doctor'.
"It's all right. It's holding!" Called the girl, before the muffled voice of the older woman spoke to her, starting a conversation.
But she was only staring at the cones as she tried her best to piece together all that was happening. The Doctor seemed to have forgotten her presence and was fiddling with a controller he had.
Not even a few minutes later a grin split over his face, "here we go!" He cried making her jump slightly at his sudden shout. She watched as the cones began to do their purpose, triangulate the ghosts.
"The scanner's working. It says delta one six." she barely heard Rose's voice from the blue box, she didn't even have time or patience at the moment to wonder just how much space was in that small police box.
"Come on then, you beauty!" the Doctor called as there started to be a vague outline of the figure she had seen earlier.
Soon enough the outline filled out and there stood the 'ghost' trapped in the cones, She couldn't help but glance at the Doctor as he put on a odd paper type of glasses, one blue and the other red, she frowned as he messed with the controls, but the ghost attracted her attention as it started to writhe and squirm in the containment field created by the cones.
"Don't like that much, do you? Who are you? Where are you coming from? Whoa!" He cried lurching back as the ghost tried to break from the containment field, she lurched back too, not even noticing that her hand had landed on her gun that was strapped to her leg. She watched it with newfound unease. "That's more like it! Not so friendly now, are you?"
The joy of containing the ghost, and the unease of it's lashing out were soon irrelevant as it seemed to vanish before them. She stared at the spot where it had been keeping quiet as the Doctor gathered up the cones and ran for the blue, she frowned for only a moment watching him before taking a breath and following after him quietly, she almost didn't step inside, it was just a box, they would be out soon enough. But then she glanced inside, her eyes widened and before she knew what she was doing she had stepped inside the box staring at everything wide eyed, she had been sure of it's size.
What kind of box was this?
She was so enamored she didn't even notice as the doors shut behind her, and the three of them were too focused on hurrying to notice her presence.
"I said so! Those ghosts have been forced into existence from one specific point, and I can track down the source. Allons y!" the shout startled her out of her daze, she looked at them, watching as he threw a lever and danced around the round console in the center of the room. She then realized they probably wouldn't be happy with a stowaway, and she had just started scarring from her last fight, she really wasn't in the mood to get into another so soon,
Not that she wouldn't if needed of course.
She stepped back, stumbling slightly at the lurch that the box gave, from what? She couldn't possibly know, but she ducked under the railing having some trouble...because of the stupid things on her back. She gave a silent growl and grabbed the tailing and lowering herself down to the ground and mending into the shadows like she did best, she grasped the beam before her to stabilize herself.
"I like that. Allons y. I should say allons y more often. Allons y. Watch out, Rose Tyler. Allons y. And then, it would be really brilliant if I met someone called Alonso, because then I could say, allons y, Alonso, every time. You're staring at me." he stopped as he noticed Rose staring at him, she gave him a look.
"My mum's still on board."
At that she glanced up to a platform where the woman was sitting, but she could only see her calves and her shoes. A slight smirk made her eyes crinkle a bit.
"If we end up on Mars, I'm going to kill you." She remarked seriously, and a fuller and amused smirk lit her face, but only slightly visible by her eyes.
The Doctor seemed to do his best to be...okayish with her presence, he decidedly didn't want to respond to that and turned back to the console. Thankfully they arrived quickly.
"Oh well there goes the advantage of surprise. Still, cuts to the chase. Stay in here, look after Jackie." The Doctor spoke again with almost a bit of a pout as he watched them on what appeared to be a monitor of some sort, but the old school look to it all made her grimace as if almost in pain.
"I'm not looking after my mum." Rose remarked with a bit of a grumble to it at the prospect.
"Well, you brought her." He countered with a look.
"I was kidnapped!" The woman cried, and she couldn't help but frown. If she thought that this was what kidnapping was, then she was perhaps a bit daft.
"Doctor, they've got guns." Rose remarked with only a twinge of fear and hesitancy in her voice, as she gazed at the monitor that clearly showed what was going on outside.
"And I haven't. Which makes me the better person, don't you think? They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine." He remarked cheerily, while she could only marvel at how that was one of the stupidest things she had ever heard. What does morals do for you if you're dead?
She was pulled from her thoughts when she had to duck down more as they approached the doors, she further hid into the shadows, and for not the first or last time she was thankful for her all black attire. Only having to cover up the mouthpiece of her mask to prevent the glow from being seen. One of the many things she hated about this stupid thing.
The Doctor was the one to step out first, the two women staying back, that she couldn't help but internally grumble about, this odd position was very quickly testing the limits of her recovery from the explosion earlier.
"Oh! Oh, how marvellous. Oh, very good. Superb. Happy day." a woman's voice drifted through the wooden door, she sounded very cheery. Perhaps this man held a sort of legend status.
She could only assume that they had transported, how she hadn't a clue, but the machine had started up to life at the controls the Doctor punched, the central clear column that went through the middle of the console contained two smaller columns, one covering and going over the other, the middle column had gone up and down and the box had made all sorts of noises, the woman had mentioned Mars, somehow, this smaller on the outside box could transport from one place to another. In a short period of time it seemed.
The clapping pulled her from her thoughts, apparently he was rather welcomed here.
"Er, thanks. Nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor." he muttered awkwardly, she could hear it through the door, clearly he had not been expecting that. Not that she would've either with their previously mentioned display of arms.
"Oh, I should say. Hurray!" The woman cheered again and she couldn't help but sigh quietly, people were so rather annoying. The sooner she was back in her lab, the better.
" You, you've heard of me, then?" He questioned, she could hear the slight surprise and caution laced through his voice.
"Well of course we have. And I have to say, if it wasn't for you, none of us would be here. The Doctor and the Tardis." The woman supplied happily, which made her brow furrow, okay. This guy was obviously very important, and she assumed by Tardis the woman meant the box she was currently in. More applause resounded once again pulling her out of her musings.
"And you are?" The Doctor questioned, which in her opinion was smart, always figure out who the person before you is.
And their weaknesses, always find their weaknesses.
"Oh, plenty of time for that. But according to the records, you're not one for travelling alone. The Doctor and his companion. That's a pattern, isn't it, right? There's no point hiding anything. Not from us. So where is she?" The woman asked, only a tad too pushy. Companion, it was that Rose girl, obviously the Doctor hadn't expected her mother to come along.
"Yes. Sorry. Good point. She's just a bit shy, that's all." The Doctor explained, and he could almost hear the smile in his voice.
He reached back inside through the crack of the door and grabbed...not Rose but her mother. She couldn't help but smirk a bit, amused.
"Hmm. She's not the best I've ever had. Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of that..." he rambles for a bit, most of it she couldn't understand before finishing. "And just last week, she stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged fifty seven years. But she'll do." She couldn't help but hold back a snort, alright, he was kinda funny.
"I'm forty." Rose's mom retorted offended.
"Deluded. Bless. I'll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She's very good at tea. Well, I say very good, I mean not bad. Well, I say not bad. Anyway, lead on. Allons y. But not too fast. Her ankle's going." He continued, not at all caring that he might have very well slapped the woman for how much he insulted her.
"I'll show you where my ankle's going." She heard Rose's mother muttered, their footsteps slowly quieted down as they walked away.
She would've let out a breath of relief, but there was still one problem.
Rose was there.
She watched the girl as she peered through the crack between the doors, the doctor had shut it, wisely. If this Doctor was so famous and legendary, she could only imagine that there was more to the box then being bigger on the inside and a transport ship.
The girl stayed by the doors, waiting, for what she wasn't sure, but so long as she was there, she couldn't get out.
She decided she would wait, wait till the girl left and then go and try and figure out how to get back herself, after all.
She had a city to run.
Letting out a silent breath she settled silently into a better position, and she would've been quiet, would've been good and quiet.
Had she not heard a soft hum and received an electric shock to the face, she spasmed, and let out the tiniest of yelps, she had always been more susceptible to electricity.
That and water...she hated water.
She stiffened after it escaped her, praying she wasn't heard.
She was wrong.
Rose turned and looked around with a frown, someone couldn't possibly be in there with her...could they? "Hello? Is somebody there?"
She had a few options here, she gazed up at Rose and went through them in her head, one, she could let Rose continue her wonderings before chalking it up to her imagination and nerves. She could expose herself and threaten Rose to let her go back home, or, she could expose herself and plead her case. That had never really been her go-to option, but the situation seemed like it called for it. She was in a very strange land, with very strange people, and she didn't know what to make of any of it. Perhaps trying to gain some allies would be a good thing…
Temporary allies of course.
She was not a people person, their assistance would be a means to an end.
That's why she stood up and hopped over the railing silently landing behind Rose as she looked around for what she had heard.
"Yes, but I prefer to be called Nightshade."