Part 2 - 'Til Death do us Part
Chapter 32 - Helltreader
The next morning arrived far too quickly. Ganke arrived at the flat at nine o'clock, Edward arrived a few seconds later. Miles explained everything Ganke needed to know about looking after Peter while Gwen packed a bag with spare clothes and anything else she thought they would need. Finally, Ganke watched as the couple and Edward were consumed by energy and disappeared.
As soon as they arrived aboard SGC Valour, Edward tapped his com badge.
"Bridge, return us to the task-force."
"Yes, sir."
The ship began to shake a little as Edward took them to a briefing room opposite the room containing the transfer pad. He beckoned for them to sit in one of the many empty seats. A screen at the front lit up as Edward tapped it.
"Really? A powerpoint?" Commented Miles.
"Shut up and listen."
Miles was confused by Edward's attitude. The last time they had been spoken, a couple of years back, Edward had been a calm and caring person who worried about the consequences of every action. He listened as the admiral began to brief them:
"You both remember Conall? If you don't then you're of little use here because your memory is so dead. It turns out that despite the fact he was crazy, his purpose was sound. Three weeks ago, the Quintari home world: Ardveer, was attacked. Unsurprisingly, that's not a rare occurrence. There was just one difference between this attack and all others."
Edward tapped the screen again. It changed from the title to an image of somewhere in space. Thousands, perhaps millions of chunks of rock could be seen, along with the odd star in the background.
"This was all that remained of not just Ardveer, but the entire star system. There were few survivors, but there was a lot of radio and data transmissions, mostly distress calls but a few others as well. The most important right now is this one which was sent when it was obvious the battle was lost."
He tapped the screen again and it changed to a video which showed a number of grey skinned creatures, each with six limbs, fighting a single human. Miles knew the grey things were Quintari. Their limbs grew longer, slashing and striking at the human who swatted them away like insects. One of the Quintari managed to wrap the person. The others moved in for the kill, one raising a pistol of some form to their head. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a swarm of other Quintari burst into the image and overran the original group with ease. One scrambled up the wall like an animal and smashed the camera recording. The video stopped.
"This video tells us a lot. Any normal human would be butchered by just a single Quintari. This means we're talking about an Advanced."
"What's an Advanced?" Asked Gwen.
"A human with abnormal abilities, like you two. As far as we're aware, there are no Advanced native to my home dimension. And that theory still holds up. Look at this."
The image turned to one shot from another security camera in whatever location this was. At the edge of the image, there was some sort of thing floating, it was like a wide crack in a pane of glass, but there was no glass around.
"This is a gateway between worlds, not one created by an Ethereal Plate. This was created using the Subtle Knife. I'm sure you remember that thing."
Gwen groaned and buried her head in her arms on the desk in front of her.
"This is turning into every nightmare I've had since the first war ended." She muttered.
Miles wrapped an arm around her comfortingly. Edward continued:
"Since we have no idea how the Subtle Knife works, we have no way of finding out which world it leads to. All we know is that it was used in the assault. The next thing we need to look at is this army the Advanced mustered out of nowhere. By slowing down the footage, we see they came out of the roof. By stopping it altogether, we see these Quintari are missing a lot of flesh. You can see their bones, even some of their internal organs. Even weirder, none of the organs appear to be doing anything. The lungs don't expand and contract, the heart doesn't beat. This leads us to a single conclusion: this is an army of the dead."
"I think this just turned into every nightmare everyone's ever had." Said Miles.
"Not true. We haven't seen an army of dinosaurs yet. I once had a nightmare when I was three of being eaten by a T-Rex at a roller coaster park." Replied Edward, his old kindness seeming to shine through the dark shroud a little.
But it was gone again in an instant as he continued.
"The last thing we need to look at is the location of the attack: the Ardveer Core vault, or ACV. Remember anything about the ACV?"
"It was where the Plates and fragments were taken after the war with Conall." Replied Gwen bleakly.
"Exactly. In this next clip, we see the Advanced leaving the ACV with three colours of energy around them: gold, green and magenta. If we look at their hand, we see a slight turquoise glow. We believe this is the Relic of Planets: the item you, Gwen, stopped Olivia Octavius from retrieving at Comic Con."
"Before she was murdered."
"After leaving the vault, the Advanced departed through the gateway they came from. Shortly after that, the star which Ardveer orbited began to grow dimmer. The planets around it crumbled into the boulder field I showed you a moment ago as it went out."
"Is there anything else you know about the Advanced?" Asked Miles who was gently playing with Gwen's hair.
"Yes there is."
Suddenly, the door beeped twice.
"Come in." Said Edward, turning to see who it was.
A familiar man entered.
"Ah, Doctor. I was beginning to worry you wouldn't be joining us."
"Really? I wouldn't miss this for the world. Quite literally."
"Which one?" Asked Miles.
The Doctor grinned.
"All of them."
He sat down at a desk behind the spiders and put his legs up on it. Edward turned back to the screen for a second, trying to remember where he was.
"You were about to tell us what else you know about this...Advanced." Gwen prompted.
She just wanted this to be over so she could get away from it all. Her impending reunion with the Ethereal Plates scared her.
"Yes, so I was. They come from dimension 0,46,4377,7734, or 0734 where we believe there is some sort of base or stronghold. I'm going to hand over to the Doctor who'll tell you a story."
"We aren't kids. We should be telling stories to our son, not listening to them from you." Muttered Gwen.
Edward ignored the remark and sat down. The Doctor zapped the screen with his sonic screwdriver, making it change to a picture of a knife with an angel engraved in the handle.
"So, after Helltreader's stunt on Ardveer, I set about making sure he couldn't do it again, or at least had no reason to. Going by the story of how Gwen merged with the Plate of Infinity, I worked out the Subtle Knife was the key to gaining the full power of the Plates. Without it, Helltreader can't merge with them. So, I did what anybody with a TARDIS would do and stole it from him, quite successfully I might add."
"Get to the point." Said Gwen, sitting back in her chair.
"Will you stop wallowing in your own self pity for just a minute so I can explain what's been happening so that there's even a slight chance we can beat this guy?"
The Doctor's sudden mood swing hit Gwen like a ton of bricks. For the first time in three years she felt like there might be a way to redeem herself. She could save the multiverse, and by saving countless more, she might find the strength to forgive herself for killing those billions in her home dimension. She took a deep breath and nodded.
"Thank you. Now as I was saying, I stole the knife from him. I took it to the only place I felt it might be safe. What better way to defeat an army of the dead than with an army of the dead? It's hidden deep within the Cloisters under the Citadel of my home planet: Gallifrey. That means the only thing left to do is defeat Helltreader. We have a way to do it, but you aren't going to like it."
"What is it?" Pressed Miles.
"We need to construct a new collider like the one your old buddy Kingpin built under Brooklyn. So, we broke him out of prison so he could recover the data from the archives of his company and Alchemax. Once we have the schematics, we'll start building it."
"Hold on, it was you guys who broke Kingpin out?"
Edward chuckled.
"I thought you'd figured that out already. Yes, it was us. Specifically me."
"That man is dangerous! He can't be trusted." Miles protested.
"And how else do you propose us building the collider?" Asked the admiral.
Miles shrugged.
"I guess there isn't another way."
"Once we have the new collider, we take Kingpin back to prison. We use the machine to put Helltreader in a state of temporal flux, stuck in no dimension, nor the world between worlds. After that we work on a more permanent solution to get rid of him." Finished the Doctor.
"What do you mean a more permanent solution?" Asked Gwen.
Edward stood up and gave the Doctor a nod. The Doctor left the three of them alone.
"Even in a state of temporal flux, Helltreader will make appearances here and there throughout the multiverse; it's why we call it flux. He can still inflict damage. We just need to make sure he can't whenever he emerges. But we'll think about that obstacle when we get to it. For now, I need you both to do something for me: I need you to make peace with someone."
The pair nodded.
"As long as they're willing, we are." Replied Miles.
"Good."
The door beeped again.
"Come in."
It hissed open revealing a large figure in a prison suit.
Crossovers in this Chapter
- Doctor Who
- His Dark Materials