The crew converges from different directions in the corridor, as everything shook. Most of them almost without a breath except for the Doctor and I, who had a more advanced biology.
"Come on! Keep Moving!" Jefferson calls out, as he pulls Toby along making sure he doesn't get locked out. "And you too, Toby!"
We were taking a breath, recovering from the shock when the computer sounded through the coms. "Breach sealed. Breach sealed."
"Everyone all right?!" The Doctor asked, quickly checking over everyone with his eyes. "What happened? What was it?"
"Hull breach." Jefferson, the head of security, explained. "We were open to the elements. Another couple of minutes and we'd have been inspecting that black hole at close quarters."
"That wasn't a quake." The Doctor affirmed, confused. "What caused it?"
Before Jefferson could explain, the Captain's voice sounded through the coms. "We've lost sections eleven to thirteen. Everyone all right?"
"We've got everyone here except Scooti." Jefferson replied. "Scooti, report. Scooti Manista? That's an order! Report."
Everyone was quiet, Scooti didn't report back.
"She's all right." Zach, the Captain informed, and each of them looked relieved. "I've picked up her biochip. She's in habitation three. Better go and check if she's not responding. She might be unconscious."
They decided to head to habitation three to check on Scooti. The Doctor, however, is still curious about what did indeed happen.
"What happened?" He asks Toby, who was sitting on the floor still looking out of it and shaky.
"I don't... I don't know." Toby replies. "I was working and then I can't remember. All that noise. The room was falling apart. There was no air."
I narrow my eyes at his explanation. With a plan in mind, I casually touch my earing turning off the cerebral inhibitor and crouch down, moving closer to Toby. "Are you ok? You might have a concoction."
I put my hand on his forehead and dive into his mind without him knowing any better. At first contact I shiver, there's a link at the back of his mind. Like a pit, for lack of a better term, it's sucking knowledge and memories from Toby's mind. I guess the Devil really likes his mind games, I wanted to play as well. However, before I can reach forward and meet the gigantic mind at the end of the link, the Doctor grabs my hand and breaks the connection.
"Well, I do happen to be a Doctor." The Doctor said, looking at Toby, before turning towards me with a forced smile. "I think I'm more qualified for this type of thing, don't you think Rani? I think he's just a tad shocked."
"Of course." I reply, giving him a strained smile that secretly meant I wanted to maim him. Since he was still holding my wrist, I forced a mental connection.
I'm more qualified than you at telepathy, dimwit.
You can't just enter people's heads without their knowledge, they have no barriers Rani, he replied.
Do you think I wanted to take a stroll in some ape's head? Wrong! I wanted to have a chat with the thing inside.
The Doctor looks at me startled, before frowning.
What was it? He asked.
I didn't have enough time to take a closer look, thanks to you, but it sure looked interesting.
He narrowed his eyes at me, but before he could lecture me some more, I pulled my hand free from his grasp. Rose was helping Toby up from the floor, and the Doctor joined them after sending me another look.
He was soon distracted by his blonde ape and I used the moment to sneak away from the group, tired of all this human interaction while the Devil was waiting for me downstairs.
The Doctor, Rose and the crew eventually reach habitation three. The Doctor was worried, he had lost his Tardis, he had to take care of Rose and now there was something messing with people's heads. Well, someone else other than Rani.
Having her here was messing with his head too. It had been so long since they had been together, well together as in not trying to kill each other. He didn't count the whole debacle on Pete's world because at the time he was still processing the fact that he wasn't alone anymore. They had a brief chat after she healed in his Zero room, but even that was short.
Now, here she was doing what she did best- discovering the secrets of science. He wondered how long it had been for her since she had last seen him, time travel made it hard to keep count. It couldn't have been that long; she was still in the same regeneration at least.
He was helping the humans search for their companion when he looked up and his expression darkened. "I've found her." He told the others.
They followed his line of sight and looked up through the open shutter to see Scooti drifting away in space, towards the black hole.
"Oh, my God!" Rose exclaimed, shocked.
"I'm sorry." The Doctor said, looking up at the body floating. "I'm so sorry."
"Captain." Jefferson called through the coms. "Report Officer Scootori Manista PKD, deceased. Forty-three K two point one."
"She was twenty." Ida said, still looking shocked, as she closes the shutters. "Twenty years old."
"For how should man die better than facing fearful odds?" Jefferson said, quoting Horatius by Thomas Babington. "For the ashes of his father and the temples of his Gods."
They each remain quiet, offering Scooti a minute of silence when Ida frowns. "It's stopped." She said.
"What was that?" Rose asked. "What was it?"
"The drill." He informs, understanding what Ida had mentioned before.
"We've stopped drilling." Ida informs. "We've made it. Point zero. Finally." At that, the woman looks around and asked. "Where's Rani? She's my commanding officer, we have to get down there."
The Doctor looks around and finds that Rani had indeed disappeared. For a second, he used his mind to search for her only to find emptiness. He frowned; she had closed herself off. While Rani had never been much of a social butterfly, now that their kind was gone, she too should feel the loneliness inside their heads, and yet, she still closed herself off.
But worse than that, she had run off and was probably about to cause chaos. Even worse than that, he was worried, because a Rani in search of scientific knowledge was a danger; not only to others but especially to herself.
I left the rest of them because I had a plan, well, not a very good one but a plan none the less. It involved getting the Tardis and then going to meet the Devil in the pit for a quick chat. I needed to get down there.
I walked into habitation four, which was empty, and touched the Stattenheim Remote Control that was hidden in my belt. Soon enough the sound of my beautiful Tardis materializing in front of me was heard.
"Oh beauty, have you missed me?" I asked, as I touched her door and stepped in. While the outside was bright red, the inside was as green as a forest, I had missed this. A few hours away from her was torture, that and I head was killing me.
"Now then, it's time to go to hell." I said as I started the engine. I had to run to the other side of the control panel to recalibrate the location and quickly dematerialized her. When I felt her land, it was a rough landing. I ended up on the floor, my long hair all over the place.
"I get it, you don't like it here." I called out, and the light in the walls shimmered. "It's a quick stop, just a chat with some kind of demon. I'll be back." With that I got up and opened one of the drawers in the control room, it was full of cables and discarded tech from when I tinkered. "Where is it?" I murmured, trying to find my helmet.
Before I could search more the damn thing rolled down the stairs that lead to the corridor. "Oh, there it is, thanks gorgeous." I thanked the Tardis and put the device on my right ear.
It looked much like those ear pod thingies the human wore in the parallel universe, but it was much more useful. Its size alternated according to function, like this it could be used as an earpiece but it could enlarge itself covering my whole face. It was black, while the part that covered over the eyes looked red.
One of its main functions was oxygen purification, to protect the wearer from toxic atmospheres and it also worked as a back-up air supply, providing oxygen to the wearer even in the vacuum of space. It also worked as pressure support, protecting the wearer's face from sudden changes in air pressure. I would tinker with it later, I could add more functions that could be useful.
I activated the helmet and stepped outside.
It looked dreadful, rocks and more rocks and nothing worth mentioning either. I guess a prison world isn't meant to look like sunshine and daisies.
I took an ape phone from one of my pockets and light up the flashlight and looked around, pointing it at the walls of the cavern that were carved with the same writings that the Tardis couldn't translate. I walked slowly, making sure that the camera inside my necklace was recording everything written to be analyzed later.
It doesn't take long until I see a huge pit dug in the ground, some kind of metal seal closed the entrance. It was massive, about thirty feet in diameter, but then again, the Devil wouldn't be tiny if it was needed a whole planet to trap his ass.
I had hoped this would have been easy, and instead, I had to find a way to open it. With a sigh I turned to the unreadable letters, the answer was here somewhere.
After 30 minutes of trying to decode the damn thing, I was about to give up for the moment, when I heard steps coming from behind me. I turned around to see the Doctor and Ida in some God-awful orange spacesuits.
"You look like a walking orange." I said as I connected my coms to theirs.
"Rani!" They both exclaimed although Ida was more shocked than the Doctor. He probably had an inkling he would find me down here.
"How are you here?" Ida asked. "And how are you able to breathe and even walk in this gravity without the proper equipment?"
I point at my face and explain. "This helmet is the most advanced technology you will ever see in your short life."
"Stop bragging." The Doctor commented, and I could see him frowning at me. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Meeting the devil." I replied with a shrug. "But this trapdoor is kind of annoying."
The Doctor, and Ida, finally notice the huge big round decorated door on the floor and the Doctor calls it in. "We've found something. Well, we found Rani and also some sort of metal seal. I've got a nasty feeling the word might be a trapdoor. Not a good word, trapdoor. Never met a trapdoor I liked."
"It's not the door you don't like, it's the thing trapped inside that's going to be a problem." I told him, while Ida looked around.
"The edge is covered with those symbols." Ida said as she looked at the words written down.
"Rani, good to hear from you. I'm not even going to ask how you got down there." Zach said, before questioning. "Do you think it opens?"
"That's what trapdoors tend to do." The Doctor replied, before turning towards me. "How come you haven't opened it yet?"
"It would take me more than 30 minutes to understand those scribbles, that language defies all the sense of logic." I groaned out, not happy to have to admit that to the Doctor of all people.
"But there is a way to open it?" The Captain inquired.
"I don't know, I can't see any sort of mechanism," Ida said.
"There isn't one." I told them. "I've checked."
"I suppose it really is the writing." The Doctor said, agreeing with me. "It'll tell us what to do. The letters that defy translation."
We listen to the Captain ask Toby about the writings before it all goes to hell. "What is it? What's he done?" The Doctor calls out. "What's happening? Rose, what's going on?"
"Possession, I believe." I tell him, and he glares at me.
"Do you know what is going on there?" The Doctor demands. "Rani, please."
Before I can even think about explaining what the hell was going on, the Ood sound throughout all the coms. "We are the Legion of the Beast."
"Rose?" The Doctor calls out. "What is it, Rose? I'm going back up."
"Report!" Captain ape's voice demands. "Report! Jefferson, report. Someone, report!"
All of a sudden Rose's voice and Jefferson's came through. "It's the Ood." Rose explained.
"Sir, we have contamination in the livestock. They won't listen to us." Jefferson explained in detail, not treating the Ood as living beings. Bloody apes.
"Doctor, I don't know what it is." Rose said. "It's like they're possessed."
"They are." I declared and the Doctor looks at me, his jaw clenched. If he hadn't been wearing the spacesuit, he would have already messed up his hair in frustration.
Before he can interrogate me again the ground starts to shake and the trapdoor in the ground opens.
The Doctor, Ida and I all hear the same voice, with a sinister laugh. "The Pit is open and I am free! Bwahahaha!"
The Doctor and Ida look shocked but I just roll my eyes. "That evil laugh makes the rest of us look bad."
"What is this, a villain laugh competition?" The Doctor asks but still looks shaken.
"If it was, I would win since the Master isn't around." I replied with a shrug and stepped forward to look down at the Pit. "I was kind of excepting sulfur and brimstone; this is kind of lame."
"I get it Rani; you think it's the Devil downstairs but be logical for a second and make sure Ida doesn't fall. I'm going to fix the coms." The Doctor said as he started working on the coms.
Meanwhile, I was babysitting Ida who was trying to reach the Sanctuary through the coms as well.
"No, sorry, I'm fine." The Doctor called out, as the coms went through. "Still here."
"You could've said, you stupid." His ape replied, and I almost gagged at how adorable they were. The Doctor connected the feed that allowed us to talk with the rest of the crew.
"Whoa. Careful!" The Doctor said as the camera turned on. "Anyway, the three of us are here. Me, Ida and Rani. Hello. But the seal opened up. It's gone. All we've got left is this chasm."
"How deep is it?" Zach asked.
"Can't tell. It looks like it goes down forever." The Doctor replied.
"The Pit is open." Rose said. "That's what the voice said.
"But there's nothing, I mean..." Zach said, inquiring if we saw anything suspicious. "There's nothing coming out?"
"No, no." The Doctor denied. "No sign of the Beast."
I closed my eyes and turned off the inhibitor again. We couldn't see it, but I sure could feel it touching the back of my mind like an infection. I did want to chat with the thing downstairs for information, but I would not let a thing like this escape from their cage. I didn't want it out, and yet everything in my body just told me to get down there and open his cage. I had strong mental defenses, and he was getting to me.
While I wasn't much of a mind controller like the Master, which required precision, I had mental power in spades but against such a creature it didn't seem to be much help.
"Doctor." I called him, quietly, and both him and Ida turned to me. "Can't you feel it?"
He focuses for a second and shakes his head. "I don't feel anything strange."
I almost growl in frustration, I really wanted to push him down that Pit. He always sucked in telepathy class but this was over the limit. Had he really been hanging too much with the apes that he had forgotten to use his abilities?
"It said Satan," Rose said, sounding frightened, and the Doctor looked at the feed again.
"Come on, Rose." He scoffed. "Keep it together."
"Is there no such thing?" The blonde ape asked. "Doctor, tell me there's no such thing."
Before the Doctor could reply, Zach said. "Ida, I recommend that you withdraw immediately."
"But, we've come all this way..." Ida replies, not wanting to back down. This was her life's work after all.
"That's an order." The Captain orders. "Withdraw. When that thing opened, the whole planet's shifted. One more inch and we fall into the black hole. So, this thing stops right now."
"But it's not much better up there with the Ood." Ida replies, still not backing down.
"I'm initiating strategy nine, so I need the three of you back up top immediately, no ar-" Before the Captain can continue, Ida turns off the comms.
"What do you guys think?" Ida asked as she turned towards the two Time Lords next to her.
"I'm going, I want to see this thing for myself." I replied with a shrug, but it didn't seem right. Hadn't I been against that a second ago? "Whatever you want to do as nothing to do with me."
The Doctor frowned at me before turning back to Ida and said. "I think they've got an order."
"Rani is going anyway, but what do you think?" Ida inquired while giving me a nod.
"It said, I am the temptation." The Doctor said, glancing at the pit.
"Well, if there's something in there, why is it still hiding?" Ida asked, curious.
"Wouldn't that be too easy?" I replied. "This whole planet is a cage, just from opening the front door the planet shifted as is about to be eaten by the black hole that, until now, wasn't a direct threat."
"We must have opened the prison but not the cell." The Doctor clarified.
"And by the looks of it, if we open the cell, the planet gets thrown into the black hole." I concluded. "But then again, I've always been a fan of danger, so being eaten by a black hole is just another Thursday."
"I think she's right," Ida spoke up. "I'd go. What about you Doctor?"
"That's so human of you Rani." The Doctor commented with a smile as if feeling proud of me. I merely glared back. "Where angels fear to tread. Even now, standing on the edge. That mad little voice saying, go on. Go on. Go over. Go on. Maybe it's relying on that. For once in my life Rani, I'm going to be the saner of the two of us, I'm going to say retreat. I know I'm getting old. Rose, we're coming back."
"Best news I've heard all day." Rose replies through the comms.
"Whatever you say, I'm still going." I replied crossing my arms over my chest making my stand, but my head was throbbing like it was on fire.
"Rani, stop acting like a child." The Doctor replied, rolling his eyes. "Worse, you're acting like a human child."
"Take that back!" I growled out, he was calling me an ape child- and immature, unlogical ape at an age in which they are extremely dumb compared to a Time tot.
"This planet is about to be destroyed, there's a thing down there that thinks it's the Devil and you want to jump down into certain death!" The Doctor ranted, before pulling me along into the capsule he used to get down here with Ida.
"Let go of me." I said, trying to get free from his hand.
"Rani." The Doctor said quietly, forcing me to give him my full attention. "I understand, you want to get to the bottom of this. You must be itching to understand how this bloody planet is possible but all the knowledge in the world isn't worth you dying. Please, if you're gone, I'll be the last Time Lord and we both know I'll implode the universe and all of time and space one of these days. You need to be around to fix that, and call me an idiot."
"And punch you, and call your companions apes." I added, before sighing. Fine, he had a point and something wasn't right.
Ida then joins them in the capsule and explains that strategy nine is basically killing every single Ood in the Sanctuary.
"So, we're going back to a slaughter?" The Doctor asked, not pleased.
"The devil's work." Ida replies.
"Don't blame the Devil." I said, unamused. "That's just you humans being bloodthirsty little savages."
"I have to admit..." The Doctor said, looking at me amused. "I kind of missed you dissing every race in sight every five seconds."
"Like you don't do the same." I rolled my eyes. "You just don't say it out loud."
Ida ignored us and informed the crew. "Okay, we're in. Bring us up."
"Ascension in three, two, one." Jefferson starts the countdown but before we can go up the power goes out.
"This is the darkness." A dreadful voice stated. "This is my domain."
Again, this day sure was giving me horror movie vibes.
A/N: Hi guys, here an update. I'll update again next week, and that is actually a promise since this chapter was actually an extremely long chapter that I decided to divide in two. So, what did you guys think? Tell me your thoughts in the comment section down below.
Ritz