Chapter V: Threats
He had no idea how long he had been unconscious when he finally came to. He rubbed his head and sat up and looked around. It had been at least a few hours, he assumed, because it was dark out and the lights from a restaurant across the street were shining into the alley, making him squint and groan as he looked away.
He stood slowly, making sure nothing was broken before walking carefully out of the alley. It had to be around dinner time, he deducted, because all of the restaurants had delicious scents wafting out from their interiors. Saltrall's mouth watered slightly, but that might have just as much to do with potential head trauma as his hunger, but he decided against going into any of them because it'd be safer to just get something to eat at the TARDIS.
As he walked past a different alley he saw three shady looking men talking quietly. Curious and against his better judgment he grabbed his Sonic in his pocket and walked carefully into the alley. He was about to yell to get their attention when one of them saw him and alerted the others. Two of them were wearing strange masks and armor and the third looked like a regular citizen. The civilian ran in the other direction while the two masked men jumped on some boxes and onto the nearby rooftop.
Saltrall ran after the two men and jumped up the same way they had. Just as he landed one of them attacked him. The man punched Saltrall in the chest, making him stumble, but he blocked the next punch and swept his attacker's legs out from under him. Saltrall kicked him in the side to keep him down but looked up just as the other man threw a punch at him.
Saltrall tried to block his punch but was a second too slow and got hit across the face, causing him to stumble backwards. He didn't have time to recover as the man kicked him in the knee, forcing him off the roof.
Saltrall cried out as he fell. The man who kicked him watched him fall before helping up his compatriot and they ran off. "Again? Really?" He groaned to himself quietly, staying on the ground for a few minutes before he got up shakily. He felt his head and sighed when he only felt a nasty bump and didn't see any blood on his fingers, then he felt his pocket and let out a breath when he felt his Sonic still there. He pulled it out and scanned himself, but found that he had no serious injuries aside from the bump on his head and he put it away. Rubbing his head, he looked up at the rooftop he was kicked from, it wasn't very high but he had gone through a stack of wooden shipping crates which must have done most of the damage, along with hitting the concrete.
"Again? Really?" He groaned to himself quietly, staying on the ground for a few minutes before he got up shakily. He felt his head and sighed when he only felt a nasty bump and didn't see any blood on his fingers, then he felt his pocket and let out a breath when he felt his Sonic still there. He pulled it out and scanned himself, but found that he had no serious injuries aside from the bump on his head and he put it away. Rubbing his head, he looked up at the rooftop he was kicked from, it wasn't very high but he had gone through a stack of wooden shipping crates which must have done most of the damage, along with hitting the concrete.
He groaned softly when he tried to walk, feeling a throbbing pain in his leg and his head, but he just sighed and powered through the pain as he stumbled out of the alley. He waved softly to some passing citizens who rolled their eyes, probably thinking he was some random drunk. With a sigh started to limp back to the park where he left his TARDIS.
As he was walking he saw a few people with dark grey metal armor walking around, one of them, an old woman with grey hair and two scars on her cheek noticed and walked up to him.
"Son of a-" he muttered under his breath, thinking he was about to get attacked again.
"Excuse me, sir, may I speak to you for a minute?" She asked walking up to Saltrall.
"Um sure," Saltrall replied, confused and still a little hesitant to talk, "but can I ask who you are first?"
"Oh, I can see that you are not from around here, I'm Lin Beifong, chief of police here in Republic City." She replied, holding out her hand.
"Name's Saltrall," He replied, relief flooding his body and he shook her hand softly, "Now, what can I do for you?"
"Have you seen any suspicious activity around here lately?" Lin asked him.
"Well, I fought a couple of masked men on that roof over there, that's probably suspicious." Saltrall replied matter-of-factly before putting more weight on his leg and groaning in pain as he fell to his knee. "Dammit," he muttered, "That's not good."
Lin's eyes widened and she motioned to one of the policemen with her and he helped Saltrall stand and they helped walk him to the police station.
The next few hours were spent being questioned in the police station. By the time it was over Saltrall had recovered but was exhausted and annoyed, just wanting to get back to the TARDIS and sleep.
By the time he reached the TARDIS the sun was starting to come up, causing Saltrall to groan and rub his face. Too tired to go to his bedroom he laid down on the couch and fell asleep within seconds.
He shot up a few hours later, panting and sweating. He sighed and rubbed the back of the his head. He'd had another nightmare, but this one was different than the usual ones, it wasn't a memory, it was something... else.
He couldn't even begin to describe it, it was just a jumble of pictures and shouts. He saw flashes of people he had known, both friends and foes, but other than that it was unintelligible.
"Great, now my nightmares are turning cryptic," he thought to himself as he rubbed the sleep from his face and sighed.
He tried to forget about it as he stood up and stretched. He went to the bathroom and realized that he hadn't even looked at the extent of his injuries from last night. Wincing slightly as he sat on the toilet lid, he pulled his pants off and looked at his legs. He looked at his legs and saw that he had a nasty bruise on his calf and several cuts on his arms, and he had to assume his back as well, all that was combined with the nasty bump on his head.
He decided to stay close to his TARDIS, at least for the time being, and try to heal up and think about things that weren't his nightmares.
He took a quick shower and felt refreshed and relaxed. He'd forgotten about his dream too, at least for the time being, and he wrapped his leg with gauze and put bandages on the larger cuts he saw and he stood in front of the console, looking at the monitor as he searched for various things here and there.
Eventually he decided it would be best to modify his Screwdriver again. He had modified it once, right after the Doctor gave it to him, and he turned it into a weapon combined with a tool, but now he had decided that he no longer wanted it as so much of a weapon. He grabbed it off the console and headed down the main hallway to his workshop. He smiled as he sat down at his workbench and admired the tool for a minute before grabbing the blueprints he had drawn up last time he modified the Sonic and got to work drawing and erasing.
For almost three hours he had sat there listening to various CDs he had picked up during his journeys while working on improving his Sonic. He listened to heavy songs because he always worked best when he could feel the floor shake from the bass of a song.
He smiled as he put the last panel in place and set down the Sonic before standing up to stretch. His work had been complicated and grueling, but in the end everything came together. He was well known for being able to quickly fix mechanical issues on Gallifrey, and he hadn't lost his skills over time, finishing the improvements to his Sonic in just over three hours, where it would have taken most people around twelve.
Regardless of his ability he still had to test it. He completely modified the end, removing what he had called the kill button and he adjusted it to have different settings that could be adjusted by twisting the end. His hope was that he could use the pulse emitted by the Screwdriver to be able to scan people instead of just paralyzing them.
The main reason he did it was to see if anyone had a hidden weapon so he could prepare, just in case the situation arose.
Of course he also left the weapon function in, but now it was only accessible when the claws around the front were open, he decided that that just looked more threatening and he liked it that way.
Regardless of his stylistic choices, however, he decided that maybe it would best to not to go back to Republic City anytime soon. After getting beaten down twice by goons for a shadowy organization he knew nothing about, it seemed smarter to do research instead of jumping straight into the fray again. He chuckled when he thought about that and wondered how his teachers on Gallifrey would react to that, after years of complaining he was too headstrong and didn't think before he acted. He smiled and realized that he should just relax inside the TARDIS and recover a little bit more, or maybe explore the surrounding countryside, but that could wait for another time. Instead he went back out to the main hub, sat down, pulled up the monitor, and dove head first into a revolution he didn't even know about yet.