Torchwood
War of Ice
Chapter One
Spikerhedge
It seemed like an ordinary Wednesday for the Torchwood team, it was always quiet on Wednesday. Owen was busy with paperwork he had no real interest in and Jasmine brushed up on her gaming skills. There was a slight spike but Jasmine wasn't worried...yet,
She looked over at Owen as he came out of the kitchen with a coffee,
"I hear you're filing for custardy of Morgan' brother Neil"
"Yeah, we're at the reference stages now. I know not all childrens care homes are like that but the one Neil was in...I can't leave him there, I can't" Owen said, "In part it's guilt, I couldn't save Morgan"
"Want one from Jack and I?" Jasmine asked, Owen gave her a pleading look, "Already done and sent off"
"Oh thank you Jas!" He said hugging her, "Thank you"
She smiled.
"Pole sent you a signal, did you answer it?"
"It seemed legit, he reckons he knows something. He said his soul had been taken from his body but that it was being preserved, why would the EC help the likes of him?"
Just then Jack arrived at the hub with James in tow, James was now in pre-school and had a sweet blue and yellow uniform,
"That was the scariest thing I have ever done" Jack said reaching Jasmine and Owen
"The school run?" Jasmine said eyebrows raised.
Emepror arrived at the hub then with Vera, Emperor had a very mischevious look on his face and Jasmine didn't trust this one bit,
"Do you have any idea how competitive the school playground is? My child could be on Master Mind, oh yeah? Mine is bilingual. Well my kid is a fucking alien, suck on that one" Jack said
As Jack took a sip of tea Jasmine had been drinking Emperor took his chance,
"Vera' pregnant"
Jack spat his tea everywhere...
Over in the multistorey car park a lawyer was walking towards his car when he saw a metal hedgehog crawling over the bonnet, crushing it as it did so,
"What the hell are you!?" He tried to take a swipe at it, "Get off my car!"
The hedgehog doubled in size and shot it's spikes off, pining the man to the pillar behind him.
Jack was still trying to get over the shock of Emperor' prank when he, Jasmine and Owen arrived at the scene.
Something was off about the atmosphere though, Jack and Owen felt edgy and they didn't know why. By the time Adrian arrived on scene, having been at Chrissie' place and parked his car in this car park Jack and Owen were frantic,
"They're still here" Jack said
"They're watching" Owen said
"How're we going to get that body to the hub..." Jack said then hands out he said, "Shush! We can't let them know we're on to them!"
"Uh, everything alright there?" Adrian asked
"They've been like this for twenty minutes now, they won't even let me touch the body" Jasmine said
"It could be dangerous" Jack said wide eyed,
"Something' not right" Adrian said
Jack grabbed Adrian,
"You feel it too!"
"Look. Mum is safe with me, we'll get the body to the "You, know what" and we'll call when we get there, you scout out this place" Adrian said calmly, Jack agreed and Adrian and Jasmine took the body and went back to the hub, "What was that?"
"I have a feeling they were darted with a paranoia inducing drug...it should wear off soon but, who would do this?" Jasmine asked, "Wait...no, they wouldn't"
"What?"
"Could be a coincidence but there was an FBI hummer in the car park"
"Someone is trying to make sure Liam can't return" Adrian said angrily
After standing back to back and going around in circles on the same spot for an age they fell over and crawlled towards the FBI hummer, believing it to be their Torchwood car. The keys were in the ignition so there was nothing to say this wasn't their car. They drove it onto the first floor landing of the Torchwood hub, leaving Adrian and Jasmine floored.
Jack and Owen stumbled out of the driver' side of the car and then commando crawlled along the landing, forcing Jasmine to knock them both out with her sonic,
"Mum?"
"Yeah, it's bad"
"No" Adrian said, phone to his ear, he'd just had Chris on the phone, "Pitch was darted too, he used to be a Doctor before he joined SLSC. Chris said because he's a version of Emperor if he comes anywhere near this place now he could well be affected too"
"So it's only medics...Liam isn't a medic"
"They're forcing our hand but this feels different mum" Adrian said, "You get them into the medical suit and I'll do the autopsy on the body"
Jasmine called in a favour,
"Michael, I'm invoking you duty to me, Torchwood is in trouble"
Adrian found an ID for the lawyer and Jasmine discovered he was involved in a classified case. She went down the list, Andy was on the original case, so she called him,
"FBI took it out of my hands" Andy told her
"What was it about?" Jasmine asked
"I can't tell you that, I'm sorry but if you're not treading on our files and remember I was FBI once, it's not going to end well" And with that Andy put the phone down,
"Mum, I found the darts, they're like hair strand size but I found traces of White Snake Venom"
"White Snake Venom!? How did FBI get their hands on that!?"
"Unless, whoever this is, is playing the FBI and us" Adrian said
Liam got off the phone to Adrian, went next door and banged his fists on it until Vera and Emperor answered,
"What's going on?" Vera asked
"How long have you got? Number one, Jack, Owen, Pitch in comer, poisoned by White Snake venom,
Number two, it was, quite possibly an FBI official and we know this because Jack and Owen stole his planted hummer from the scene of the crime in order to get back to the hub" Vera rolled her eyes, "Number three, the head of FBI is now involved, he's on his way over to the Torchwood hub as we speak to kick Jasmine' arse and I can forget being aloud back now, not after this. Number four, the SLSC are now involved, Andy won't give us details of the case; just that the victim of the scene where Jack and Owen were poisoned was a lawyer in this case" Liam told them
"Vera, I want you to have a word with Tippet, commandeer the case if you have to; we need to know what started this" Emperor said, then to Liam he asked, "How did our victim die?"
"He was pinned to a illar by metal bristles and whatever did this crushed his car too" Liam said, "He found ID but got distracted by the darts in Jack and Owen' necks"
When Vera found Tippet and she told him what was going on he squirmed,
"I cannot get fired for this!" He snapped
"Why would you be fired?" Veras asked astonished
"Lofty' son took the case, he knows something about me, about our lives with the Emperor, he was going to have me deported if I didn't...I didn't know what to do!" Tippet said
"Deported where?" Vera asked
"Well seeing as my planet was blown up by your boyfriend! Space!" He quipped
"I'm going to sort this, where is Lofty now?" She asked
"The Southern Hotel" Tippet said, "Don't get me killed!" He called after her
A key witness in the case entered his living room with a tray of tea and biscuits. He caught sight of the metal hedgehog on his wall above the mantle piece and dropped the tray. He tried to take a swipe but it doubled in size and shot off it's spikes, pinning him to the oposite wall.
Back at the hub Emperor had run the bristles makeup through the system and he, Jasmine, Adrian and Liam were looking at the readings on the computer in the lower central hub,
"Well I can tell you now Torchwood has never dealt with a Spikerhedge. What the hell is a Spikerhedge anyway? And if you tell me it's a metal hedgehog I will slap you" Jasmine said to Emperor
"It's a metal hedgehog, it is. It's a pet in the right hands and a menace in the wrong hands. They don't respond to anyone other than the owner, and before attacking they double in size and fire the bristles on their bodies at the victim, killing them instantly. They can bring down entire structures, the crushed car; all that Spikerhedge had to do was stand on top of it, it can climb brick walls too because of the bristles" Emperor told them
It was at that moment that the call came through about the latest victim.
As they arrived at the scene the properties either side had been evacuated,
"The body is still in there" Andy told them, "I'm leaving, whatever is going on between your lot and FBI it's not worth my head"
As he turned to leave the whole house came down,
"Great" Jasmine sighed
Michael arrived on scene and hugged Jasmine,
"Got here as soon as I could, I wanted you to know Vera is heading over to meet someone called, Lofty, to take the case from him, by force if need be and Emperor called to say the FBI Head is now at the hub so while my team get the body out of that rubble I'm going to see if I can smooth things over" He told her
Vera was let into a room by Lofty and after slamming the door they stared each other out for a minute or two,
"Don't even try and mess with me" Vera said
"But it's so much fun"
"Shut up!" Vera snapped, "Give me the files"
"What's it worth? If dad finds out I just let it go..." Lofty said
"Your life" She said, he threw the file to her, "What do you know?"
"It's been ongoing for the last two years; this has nothing to do with Liam! It started off as Andy' case but when he realised there was something else involved it was offered to Torchwood, however UNIT intercepted it and then handed the case to Tippet, my father got involved and before I knew it I was in charge and I don't even work for the FBI!" Lofty said
"Right, this changes everything" Vera said, "For Liam anyway"
With that she left.
Back at the hub Micahel was about to reveal a little more than he had intended reguarding the ownership of Torchwood 2.
"White Snake venom, illegal in this country and used by your son" Michael said
"I'm not the one, who poisoned them" The head said
"So this is how it's going to be" Micahel said, calm but with anger in his voice,
"It would have worn off by the time they stole the Hummer and there for I have no choice but to believe this was a calculated attack on the FBI, payback as it were for them digging in their heals over Liam' transfer back to this institute" The head said
"Not so! The effects were still in play" Michael revealed,
"If Liam is so fond of alien life why doesn't he just get a pet or something?" The head retalliated
"You were the only other person, that knew Tippet' visa had been lost in transit, you just wanted to play mind games with him so you led him to believe Lofty knew his secret too" Michael said
"Why're you really here?" The head asked, tired of this conversation now
"To get two unconscious men off for a crime they would never have committed if you'd done what you were supposed to do in the first place" Michael said
"I thought you were Adrian' guard dog...? Weren't you fired for falling in love with Jasmine?"
"My position as Earth guardian to Adrian begins when he becomes the Emperor, Jack has always remained on my list in regaurds to who I am ordered to serve when necessary or in extreme cases should Jasmine or Adrian or even the Emperor himself be present on this planet at the time, as ordered by Silver Line herself, this case however has nothing to do with any of the above" Michael responded, "Drop the charges against Jack and Owen. You can't bring either to trial because if you do that you'll have to tell them about Lofty and if you tell them about Lofty you'll have to explain how it is you managed to…"
"Fine! We're done! I just have one question, why do you care what happens to Torchwood 2?" The head asked, "You don't run it"
"No! I own it!" He snapped
Unbekown to him everyone downstairs had heard the entire conversation.
"He...owns us?" Adrian said in shock
"Kind of explains why Gwen was able to get the backing to restart Torchwood" Liam put in
At that moment Vera phoned to say she had the files,
"We'll meet at yours" Emperor told her
Twenty minutes later, following Michael' offer to babysit James, Emperor, Jasmine, Adrian, Liam and Vera were sat around the kithen table, files and photos laid out and lit candles were positioned all over the room,
"Is there a reason why we are holding this meeting in such a fashion as to suggest we were discussing a possible heist in a hide out someplace in the back of beyond?" Emperor asked
"You couldn't just ask me why I have no electric?" Vera said in question, "The circuit shorted and I can't be fucked to fix it till morning. So this case? Brook Close V Arty. Basically drops in the standard of care in elderly residents at a specialist psychiatric hospital on the main stretch out past the Crop Moss Canal lead to the discovery of ammunition, bullets, bombs, powders and explosive fuel tanks replacing oxygen cylinders. Now, on the same night a factory not two minutes from the specialist hospital was found to be full of Cyber parts. Victim one was a lawyer defending Arty, a respectable doctor, who seems to have gotten himself unwittingly embroiled in this shocking intent. He's accusing the runners of Brook Close of neglect but also to being a key in the plot of a new terror or War. There is evidence to prove someone in that hospital had regular phone calls at strange hours in the night and callouts to just one specific, a fellow doctor. Now, victim one was in fact Arty' brother, Arty can't afford the legal fees. His death was intended, someone on the other side of the fence found out, however it looks suspicious if the murders stop there, but whoever this was on the defendants team had to cover tracks and so we have victim two and a key witness in the case, he said, shortly before his murder that he'd seen and heard and could confirm on film Arty' fears" Vera revealed
"How the hell did an alien trial on both counts end up in an earthbound court?" Liam asked
"The original complaint was for neglect" Vera said
At that moment Jasmine' mobile went off. It was Micahel,
"There's a body outside the hub but this is different...this one has been cut in half" He told her
Jasmine' eyes widened.
Andy turned up at the same time as Jasmine, Adrian, Liam, Emperor and Vera, to tell his team to leave. For the second time in two years Adrian lost his temper,
"This is rediculous" Andy said
"No, what's rediculous is that Pitch nearly died in a bath of ice water thanks to the FBI and unless we capture this Spikerhedge he could still die, who is the main defendant in the case? What does he look like? I want names and addresses, these things have remarkably gone missing from the original files, I know because I've been in the hub researching them"
"No name was ever given, there was always someone else there to represent him; blanked out images. No one ever saw him" Andy replied
"OK, here's what your gonna do. In case you didn't know a Spikerhedge is a silver hedgehog, we know for a fact that there were two of them now because I did the research and the first died when the house of victim two came down. A victim, who would have survived with a bit of warning from you...you started with the FBI, now, you are gonna spend the rest of tonight hunting this thing down because if you don't then my fingers are gonna accidently on purpose dial the only number I need to total your career!" Adrian snapped
Andy knew Adrian was serious and moved his team out to search.
"For the record he was the defendant!" Andy said before leaving with them
"There was only one of them" Emperor said
"I know" Adrian replied, "But he's annoyed me now"
"Emperor, this man was killed by a Pose...ice, the Spikerhedge, don't they originate from Frozeka? Could they have a connection to the Ice Pose or perhaps a common link, one who was involved in the evolutional process of the Second Time War?" Vera asked
"I'd say the latter...I think we need to check out this factory" Emperor said
Vera and Empeor ventured into the factory, which looked unstable from outside but inside it was stuffed full of tech and cylinders.
Coloured liquids bubbled and Vera and Emperor could hear screams and cries in the distance.
In one cylinder was what Vera thought to be an elaborate face mask,
"This has Shyer Folding written all over it" Emperor said
"That's not a mask is it?" Vera realised
"No, his body is compressed in that cylinder and the one next to it houses his brain" Emperor said using the sonic to put him out of his misery,
"You shouldn't have done that, he'll be on to us now"
"I don't care" Emperor replied
"The Cyberman was a human upgrade, The Darlek' of Kainmyst, a shell for a deformed critter. The Cyberleck a combination of the two armours, replacing the blood with the metal of the Cyber and a full body Kain shield, what exactly is there left?" Vera asked
A report came in about a flat ghost at old Cardiff Hospital and here they got their answer. While searching the building they came across a human face that floated and froze everything as it screamed. Vera had never been so scared,
"Universal Ice... and human bodies, on a planet you don't rule over, with the new Emperor, untrained in this counter technique, if his body isn't old enough to withstand this powerful force you could kill him"
"Who did all this?"
A week later Pitch, Jack and Owen had recovered and along with Chris, Emperor, Vera, Jasmine, Adrian, Liam and Michael were all in the hub when their computers were taken over by an Ice Pose.
"I am here because I was asked to pass to your institute a promise by Shyer Folding. The childish games are over, this time the Empires shall be divided. If we can make you paranoid just think about what we can do to them. Pretty soon a new War will be upon us, the War of Ice. An all out War where only the strong shall fight for you, the weak will fight against and there's no telling who we might end up with either side" Adrian shook, tears in his eyes as Jack comforted him, the Pose laughed, "Winning that last Time War was beginners luck Adrian Ray, the army are still in the experimental stages...what happens when you add Universal Ice to a Cyberleck?" He laughed again, "But baby Emperor can't use that counter yet, he's too young...guess we get the first point in this Chess match huh?