In the darkness, the monitors flicker with imagines of red eyes Ood. "You little things that live in the light, clinging to your feeble suns which die."
"That's not the Ood. Something's talking through them." The Captain declared, and if I wasn't staring at the monitor, I would have rolled my eyes at that pointless statement.
"Only the darkness remains." The voice said, and I shivered. As Rina would have put it, this thing was giving me the heebie-jeebies.
"This is Captain Zachary Cross Flane of Sanctuary Base Six, representing the Torchwood Archive." The Captain said, and when I heard the name Torchwood something in my mind cleared. I should know that name. "You will identify yourself."
"You know my name." The voice coming from the Ood stated.
"What do you want?" Zach asked, almost growling.
"What every enemy wants." I whispered something I recalled saying in times of war. "More of them and less of you."
"You will die here." The Beast stated. "All of you. This planet is your grave."
"No, it isn't." This time I replied, making my voice heard. "It's not our grave, it's your prison."
"And now you are the sacrifice that will free me at last." It, whatever it was, replied.
"If you are the Beast, then answer me this." The Doctor said, looking at the monitor not believing what he was hearing. "Which one, hmm? Cos the universe has been busy since you've been gone. There're more religions than there are planets in the sky. The Archiphets, Orkology, Christianity, Pash Pash, New Judaism, San Klah, Church of the Tin Vagabond. Which devil are you?"
"All of them." The Beast replied.
"What, then you're the truth behind the myth?" The Doctor scoffed.
"This one knows me as I know him." It said back. "The killer of his own kind."
"Rude." I stated, pulling the Doctor a step back from the monitor. "It's like I'm not even here."
"You are one to talk, God Maker World Destroyer." It said back, and I felt like it was staring back into my soul. Feeling defensive I rolled my eyes, the best way to fight back when emotionally attacked was to show it didn't affect you.
"The Daleks have Copywrite on that title for yours truly, you might want to cash it out with them." I replied with a forced smile.
"How did you end up on this rock?" The Doctor asked not sounding bothered, it seemed we were on the same page on how to deal with this thing.
"The Disciples of the Light rose up against me and chained me in the pit for all of eternity." The Beast explained.
"This is starting to sound strangely biblical, don't tell me you were once the favored son of God that rebelled?" I mumbled to myself, my head was still pounding like I had been hit with a hammer.
"When was this?" The Doctor asked, after glancing at me. He too thought this sounded way too farfetched.
"Before time." It replied.
I smirked but didn't say anything, I had totally called it.
"What does that mean?" The Doctor inquired; he was frowning because he knew I had totally called it.
"Before time." The Beast repeated.
"What does before time mean?" The Time lord asked, because whatever thing was down there sure liked making other's confused.
"Before light and time and space and matter." It replied. "Before the cataclysm. Before this universe was created."
"If it was before this universe, was there another one previous to this one?" I inquired, the theories rampaging through my mind. Before the Thing could answer, the Doctor meddled.
"That's impossible." The Time Lord ranted. "No life could have existed back then."
"Is that your religion?" The Beast asked, sounding almost mocking.
"It's a belief." The Doctor replied, and I rolled my eyes. Religion was just a belief, anything in which other's believed could be considered a Religion itself.
"You know nothing. All of you, so small." The Beast declared. "The Captain, so scared of command. The Soldier, haunted by his wife. The Scientist, still running from Daddy. The Little Boy who lied. The Virgin. The Lost Girl, so far away from home, the valiant child who will die in battle soon. And the Triune, the yet not Triple Goddess, who's life holds no meaning."
As soon as it finished its long dialogue I snorted, the Devil was calling me a Goddess. "At least you know your betters."
"Doctor, what does that mean?" Rose's voice sounded through the coms, sounding scared.
"Rose don't listen." The Doctor cautioned.
"What does it mean?" Rose inquired again, not letting it go. Before the Doctor could tell her to snap out of it the image of the Ood on the monitors was replaced by a roaring horned Beast.
"What the hell was that?" Danny asked, scared.
"I had that thing inside my head." Toby said, and at that I stopped in my tracks.
Something had been feeling wrong ever since I had touched Toby's mind. My original plan had been to quietly follow the Doctor when he went down to point zero to search for his Tardis, because he would have. Yet, right after I had read the possessed ape's mind, I had made a half-assed plan to get down to the pit. I was curious, but not suicidal. I had also gotten Rina's thirst for life, her unwillingness to die no matter what. I hadn't noticed, but it had been quiet. Too quiet recently.
Meanwhile, while I had been questioning my recent actions the humans were going mental with fear of the Beast. What brought me back into focus was the Doctor.
"Stop!" He demanded, sounding much like the Oncoming Storm I knew he was. "Everyone, just stop!"
Seeing has no one was complying the Doctor sent feedback through the comms to shut everyone up.
"You want voices in the dark, then listen to mine." The Time Lord Stated. "That this is playing on very basic fears. Darkness, childhood nightmares, all that stuff."
"But that's how the devil works." Danny said.
"Or a good psychologist." The Doctor argued back.
"Yeah, but how did it know about my father?" Ida asked frightened, much like the rest of the humans.
"Okay, but what makes his version of the truth any better than mine, hmm?" The Doctor asked back. "Cos I'll tell you what I can see. Humans, brilliant humans. Humans who travel all the way across space, flying in a tiny little rocket into the orbit of a black hole, just for the sake of discovery. That's amazing! Do you hear me? Amazing, all of you. The Captain, his Officer, his elders, his juniors, his friends. All with one advantage. The Beast is alone. We are not. If we can use that to fight against him-" The Lord Doctor gave off one of his motivational speeches, inspiriting the humans to face adversity, but before he could finish the cable shears and falls into the shaft.
"The cable's snapped!" Ida informs loudly.
"Get out!" The Doctor replies, grabbing me by the arm and throwing me out of the capsule and into the ground as miles of steel cables fall at impressing speed, wrecking the capsule.
"How much air have we got?" The Doctor asks the human scientist.
"Sixty minutes." Ida replies. "Fifty-five. Well, we've got all this cable, we might as well use it. The drum's disconnected. We could adapt it, feed it through."
"And then what?" The Doctor questions.
"Abseil into the pit." Ida declared, looking down at the huge hole on the ground.
"Abseil." The Doctor said with a nod. "Right."
"Stop." I said, tired of being quiet in my corner. "As much as I would love to see you free fall into hell, it's not that simple."
"You were the one wanting to jump down a minute ago." The Doctor replied, rolling his eyes at me.
"That was before I noticed it was too quiet." I replied with a frown. "Didn't you notice something was wrong before?"
The Doctor wouldn't understand, but the other two roomies that shared my mind had been too quiet ever since I had first gone into Toby's head. Nari didn't speak much, but I was having an adventure with the Doctor and Rina was bound to never shut up. And yet, nothing- not a freaking zip. Nada. Nilch.
Adding to the fact that I had the intense need to have tea with the freaking Devil and the constant headaches there was only one conclusion. The son of a bitch got me, it was playing mind games with me and I hadn't even noticed. Which in itself was a problem.
"What are you talking about?" The Doctor asked, perplexed.
"Come on Doctor, think." I replied rolling my eyes. "I just recently got out of four centuries of war, do I look suicidal to you? Fuck no. And yet I wanted to jump down the pit, as If I'm in a hurry to die. I left to come down here without even teasing that you were going to be stuck with the apes while I was hightailing out of there, does that sound me? It's in my head Doctor, or at least it definitely was. Possibly still is."
"But you're..." The Doctor whispered shocked. "That's impossible."
"It means we're not dealing just with a fancy psychologist as you had theorized. It's worse, much worse." I replied, with a nod, confirming his thoughts. "We're dealing with, at a very least, an Alpha-Class Psychic. I can't tell, I'm not even sure how much psychic energy it could possibly have."
"Well, that's just perfect." The Doctor replied, but I could tell his eyes he was worried. If the Beast had was higher than Alpha-Class it would be classified as an Omega level class, and back in the day the Time Lords made sure to keep such threats under surveillance. Generally, Time Lords just didn't care about others, so them showing caution showed just how much of a threat this thing could possibly be.
"I don't understand any of that, but we're running out of air with no way back." Ida interrupted. "Going down is the only thing we can do. Even if it's the last thing we ever achieve."
"I'll get back, Rose is up there." The Doctor replied, before turning to me. "And my Tardis is still around here. Where's yours?"
"Five minutes away and before you ask my girl's next flight will be out of here. She's bitchy like that, if she doesn't like where she lands her next jump won't be anyplace nearby. Believe me, it has happened before." I replied, that Tardis of mine really was something else. "Since there are still fifty minutes for you guys, I'll try and track yours."
"Well then, maybe the key to finding a way out is in that pit." Ida said, the idea of going down the pit still in her mine. The possibility of her being influenced was high.
"Well, it's half a good plan." The Doctor replied, having no other ideas.
"What's the other half?" Ida asked, perplexed.
"I go down, not you." The Doctor replied, confidently.
I decided to interrupt before he jumped down. "According to my readings, your Tardis is down there. Don't ask me how."
"How did you get readings on my Tardis so fast?" The Doctor inquired, looking at me with suspicion.
"I might have left a little code in your Tardis back in the other universe." I casually replied with a little shrug.
"When did you have time for that?" The Doctor gaped.
"I might have broken in when you were otherwise occupied." I bit my lower lip to hide my amusement, he looked like a gaping fish and it was hilarious.
"How?" He gasped. "You know what, never mind, we are running out of time. I need to get down there."
"The most intelligent choice would be to hop up in my Tardis and leave this corner of the universe." I murmured to myself, although with the silence they could hear me. "Although the oldest Tardis would be missed, and the Devil would possibly escape."
"I'm getting the Tardis and getting out of here." The Doctor said, frowning at me. "You coming or staying with Ida?"
"Why would I stay with the ape when you go down to discover the secrets of time?" I rolled my eyes at him and wrapped the cable around a drum.
"So how are we both going to do this?" I asked.
"I'm going to wrap the other hand around my waist." He replied, as he proceeded to tie it down around himself.
"That should hold it." Ida said. "How's it going?"
The Doctor carefully walked towards the pit. "Hmm, there it is again. That itch. Go down, go down, go down, go down, go down."
Ok, this was taking too long.
"Down you go my Lord Doctor." I declared, and with that, I kicked him into hell. He let out a surprised scream, followed by a laugh, and grabbed on quickly enough.
"Oh my god, Rani, why did you do that?" Ida asked, shocked. I ignored her.
"Did you have to do that?" The Doctor called out, annoyed at my antics.
"You were being slower than a snail, while I have air you don't idiot." I replied, and took a pair of gloves from my jacket pocket. After I put them on, I grabbed the cable and jumped down after the Doctor.
"Are you two insane?!" Ida called, as she throws the brake on the drum, stopping the cable from free falling. "Are you guys ok?"
"Not bad, thanks." The Doctor replied, a few meters down from me. "The wall of the pit seems to be the same as the cavern, just not much of it. There's a crust about twenty feet down and then nothing. Just the pit. Ok then, lower us down."
"I'm five by five." I replied, my heart beats drumming with the thrill.
We descend in silence. The Doctor just hanging on, while I use my strength to hold on to the rope. Of course, the Doctor isn't one to hold up peaceful silences.
"You get representations of the Horned Beast right across the universe, in the myths and legends of a million worlds. Earth, Draconia, Velconsadine, Daemos. The Kaled God of War. It's the same image, over and over again. Maybe that idea came from somewhere, bleeding through. The thought at the back of every sentiment mind." The Doctor ranted through the coms.
"Bleeding through time and space, and seeing as this planet exists right in the middle of both I agree with that." I replied, nodding.
"I thought you hadn't gotten anywhere with your research about this planet." The Doctor replied, and I could feel his frown.
"Me knowing things, and me telling you things are two completely different things." I sassed, he really should have known better.
"I should have known." He mumbled although I could hear him perfectly. "But what do you mean Rani?"
"Imagine this planet like you would imagine a Void Ship." I informed.
"That's all theoretical." The Doctor snorted.
"And this planet is impossible, and the Devil is living it up in the basement. Your point?" I snarked back.
"I don't understand what ya'll talking about, but if it's emanating from here does that make it the actual devil tho?" Ida interrupted us.
"Could be, if it's what you want to believe." The Doctor replied. "Maybe that's what the devil is, in the end. An idea."
The cable suddenly stops. I look down and there's still a bit more to go down until we reach somewhere.
"Well, that's all we've got." Ida informed. "You guys getting any sort of readout?"
"Nothing, could be miles to go, yet." The Doctor replied. "Or could be thirty feet. No way of telling. I could survive thirty feet."
"We could survive way more than that." I replied rolling my eyes, I still had a few regenerations to go anyway.
"Oh no you don't. I'm pulling you guys back up right now." Ida replied, she starts reversing the drum but the Doctor stops her.
"What are you doing?" The ape asks when the drum stops.
"You bring me back, then we're just going to sit there and run out of air. Even if Rani gave us a lift, I would lose the Tardis and I can't. That and the Devil would escape and I might never find Rose again." The Doctor replied. "I've got to go down there."
"But you can't." Ida begged. "Doctor, you can't."
"Bloody Rassilon, you're boring me to death." I said, rolling my eyes and let go of the cable.
"Rani!" The Doctor called, as he undid the binders holding the cable in place around his waist.
"Geronimo bitches!" I took the plunge into the dark, and the Doctor followed after.
I landed on the bottom and groaned; it was about forty feet but I could handle it even if it was going to bruise my backside for the next few hours. A little bruise would have been fine, but then the Doctor feel right on top of me.
"Get out you idiot." I groaned again, kicking him away. He rolled to the side and sat up before grinning at me.
"I'm breathing. You cushioned my fall, thanks Rani, you made for a good pillow. You can breathe down here, Ida. Can you hear me, Ida?" The Doctor said. Ida doesn't reply. Seeing as there was air, I turned off my helmet.
I sat up and dusted my jeans, my back still hurt but it was manageable.
"Rani I think we lost the coms." The Doctor informed after he tried and failed to reach Ida. After he said that the sound of an engine could be heard from the top.
"A rocket." The Doctor identified.
"Never mind that, check this out." I called the Doctor and shone the flashlight on the wall of the cave, which was full of ancient drawings.
"The history of some big battle." The Doctor said, observing the walls. "Man against Beast."
"Not a battle, a war Doctor." I spoke up. "They defeated the Beast after much sacrifice and imprisoned it. They didn't have a weapon that could destroy it so they created a prison instead. It was also much worse than a quick death, quite vicious indeed."
"Look." The Doctor said, nodding towards two bronze urns on a pedestal. There were also two painted urns on the wall. "Maybe that's the key."
He touched one of the urns, and they both light up.
"Or the gate, or the bars." I said, and as soon as I finished an impossibly big horned creature wakes up and looks at us. It's chained to the wall by Its horns and limbs.
"It's red and has horns, and is that a tail?" I observe, narrowing my eyes. "The only thing that's missing is a freaking trident and it's ready for Halloween."
"That's all you're going to say?" The Doctor glanced at me, before turning towards the Beast.
"I accept that you exist. I don't have to accept what you are, but your physical existence, I'll give you that. I don't understand. We were expected down here, you called us. We were given a safe landing and air. You need us. What for? Do we have to beg for an audience? Or is there a ritual?" The Doctor asked. "Some sort of incantation or summons or spell? All these things I don't believe in, are they real? Speak to me! Tell me!"
"If you were a better listener you would know already." I informed. I had turned off the inhibitor and I couldn't sense the Beast down here.
"He won't talk." The Doctor said rolling his eyes, before he understood. "Or he can't talk. But, hold on, he spoke before. We heard your voice. An intelligent voice. No, more than that. Brilliant. But, looking at you now, all I can see is Beast. The animal. Just the body. You're just the body, the physical form. What happened to your mind, hmm? Where is it gone? Where's that intelligence? Oh no."
Noticing that he had realized I nodded. "It's not here, it hasn't been here because it was in the Sanctuary all this time. It thought it was an Alpha-Class Psychic because it could hold such a pull from such a distance, but in truth it wasn't far away at all. His spirit is out of his body, which makes it easy to sneak into other people's heads."
The Doctor listened and nodded, before turning towards the Beast again. "You're imprisoned, long time ago. Before the universe, after, sideways, in between, doesn't matter. The prison is perfect. It's absolute, eternal. Oh, yes! Open the prison, the gravity field collapses. This planet falls into the back hole! You escape, you die. Brilliant! But that's just the body. The body is trapped that's all. The devil is an idea. In all of those civilizations, just an idea. But an idea is hard to kill. An idea could escape. The mind of the great Beast. The mind can escape! Oh, but that's it, don't you get it Rani?"
"I already knew all of that, the Beast is stuck between a rock and a hard place. But it's escaping, it has been for a long time. But the guys that came up with such an ingenious prison weren't idiots, they knew. As they say, every curse can be broken and every prison can be escaped. Which is why we have air; someone is needed to pull the plug." I concluded.
"Exactly!" The Doctor nodded at me; he probably had gotten used to his ape companions not being able to keep up. "They set this up all those years ago! They needed us alive, because if the Beast is escaping then we've got to stop it. If we destroy his prison, the body is destroyed and the mind with it."
The Doctor raised up a rock to smash an urn, then drops it again.
"But then, the Beast is clever enough to use this whole system against us. If we destroy this planet, we destroy the gravity field. The Rocket. The Rocket loses protection and falls into the black hole. I have to sacrifice Rose." The Doctor said shocked.
"Fucking hell, you're hesitating?" I asked, frowning. "Last time you had to destroy a planet for the rest of the universe you didn't even hesitate in sacrificing the rest of us. I can't believe you."
Before he can say anything else, I grab the rock he had let fall into the grown and smack the urn. While I'm not that much of a white hat, saving the universe from the Devil and all, this thing did get into my head. I, Rina and Nari had one thing in common, we were vengeful bitches.
Before I turn towards the second urn, the Doctor smashes it himself. "You could have waited for me to finish speaking Rani. It was a test or a game. But I think you should know better than anyone, I'm not afraid of making hard decisions."
"I guess I could have given you a minute, but you know I hate it when you take too long." I said with a shrug, grinning at him. Oncoming storm indeed. "By the way, your Tardis is over there." I informed, nodded my head.
The Doctor spun around and saw his Tardis. " Sexy, oh, there you are!"
He walked towards his Tardis and turned around towards me when he reached the door. "You want a lift?"
"Leave me next to mine, would you?" I replied and followed him in.
The Doctor opened the front door of the Tardis and saw Ida right outside. "Come in Ida, we are getting out of here!"
"Doctor!" Ida called as she walked into the Tardis, giving him a hug. "Rani, you're ok as well." After letting go of him the human pulled Rani in for a hug as well. The blonde Time Lady awkwardly tapped Ida's back.
The image of Rani, hater of any and every ape related thing, receiving a hug from a human was quite funny to the Doctor. It also showed him that he had been right, this regeneration of hers was different. She hasn't as cold, nor as amoral. She was still petty, rude and a know it all. But she was more like the child he remembered, curious and mischievous but not unnecessarily cruel.
"Yes, quite alright." The Rani replied with a forced smile, as she finally pulled away from the human and started moving away. This was what he meant; her younger regeneration would probably have just killed the ape for touching her.
"See you around Doctor, try not to destroy more planets without at least inviting me." She said with a smirk, before turning around and walking outside.
He let her leave, but next time he saw her he was going to ask about what the Beast had said. What it had seen in her mind. Why it had it call her a triune, but more than that, why it had said she had no meaning. He just hoped she was alright.
"Where is she going?" Ida asked, perplexed.
"She's got her own ride." The Doctor replied, before connecting the Tardis' coms with the ones on the rocket. Right now, it was time to get Rose Tyler, and Ida, home safe.
A/N: Hi guys, here's the rest of the chapter. So, there's been some reviews saying that I shouldn't do so much of the Doctor Who episodes because the story lacks originality. Plot twist, that was never the plan. I might do some episodes, but the plan never was to follow the show in each and every episode. I've like, only done two episodes, and it's because the Doctor just found out Rani is alive so it's my way of making them reconnect. Tell me what you thought of the rest of the chapter, and any other doubts or ideas you want to point out, in the review section below!
ritzchan