It is time for the Void Walker to land herself in the biggest mess she's ever seen.
-0-
Stupid , stupid, stupid, she berated herself as she dove back through the void. Stupid to let her guard down, stupid to let the situation to get to her, and she was just plain stupid to think about what she could not have. You would think a couple of centuries would make the pain go away. Apparently it hadn't, and she needed to just concentrate on the job at hand. Her universe was gone, but she could prevent other universes from becoming part of the void.
First things first, she needed to find one of each of the metallic creatures that fell through the breach. One Dalek and one Cyberman were all that were needed. Touch one and she could dissolve all of their kind with that signature. No real reason to have them float around and plenty of reasons to destroy them so they didn't fall through to another world. It took her a few minutes, but they hadn't gotten far, and soon they were dealt with.
Now back to the path she had been following. It was so strong, the pull she felt to the universe it lead to. Apprehension prickled inside as she found and followed it. Something was very drastically wrong here. The need was so thick that she was virtually wrapped within it. Finally she saw the path leaving the void, and into a new reality.
Gathering herself she braced for the transition from energy, to physical body in this new place. The world opened up in front of her as she took her first steps into it. Upright and bipedal, okay that was easy enough. Glancing down she saw she was dressed in boots, tan trousers, and a snug black T-shirt. A long coat completed the ensemble and seemed to fit just right. She couldn't see what her face looked like yet, but she seemed basically human-ish. Her hands were a bit different though, they shaded into metallic, more talon like then hand like.
Finishing taking stock for now she looked around, and gaped. The world was in chaos. Pathways were knotted and distorted and in a huge mess. Looking up she could see planets hanging in the sky that shouldn't be there. It was so wrong; she could feel it in her very bones. She couldn't even really tell which planet she was on, things were in such a jumble. Over there was the city of New New York, and next to it resided the Thraxan Tower. Over there was the shopping bizarre from Rygal 4, hmm she'd have to see if they had those fabulous blue chips later. Much later, there were things to deal with here.
Time was splintering, past, present and future meeting in a mad rush. Romans were arguing with 43rd century police from Keppa Lork, the city not the planet. In the river, (wait how did that get there) Cleopatra was having a standoff with Queen Victoria. Absolutely nothing made sense.
Staggered, she looked around and realized people were staring at her and pointing. Wait, what? Nobody was supposed to see her that didn't need her. Yet, in this time and place everyone there was staring at her. This was really not good. She took a deep breath and said the first thing to come to mind. "Oh bullocks."
She could barely figure out where to start, but that was in part because she had landed in the epicenter. She needed to backtrack to find where things started to go wrong. Scratch that, she needed to find where one of the things had started to go wrong. Inside a part of her trembled. This was bigger than anything she had ever dealt with before. Most universes, it was one snarl or two. Here it was thousands if not millions of things. It was going to take a long time to sort out.
She ignored the people around her, as they seemed to be giving her plenty of distance. While they were pointing and exclaiming at her for some reason, they didn't approach. You would think with the mishmash of planets and time periods they would have something better to stare at the one solitary humanoid, apparently not.
One thing was clear, she couldn't fix all this alone. So to start she needed to find the major players that could help resolve this mess. So she concentrated on bringing the pathways into easy view to pick out the potentials to change things for the better. Some might say change wrong into right but she knew better. Sometimes bad things had to happen so that in the long run things got better. Sometimes the tempest was needed to make way for new things.
She lifted her hands and spread the multicolored trials into easy view to search for clues. Faintly she heard the gasps of the crowds around her. This was new they could see what she was doing. This argued heavily that she was to be a visible major player in what to was come. That didn't quite sit right with her. She was the shadow, not the sun. Still sneaking a glance around she saw something flickering on the faces in the crowd. Something, that looked like hope.
Unsettled she went back to tracing the paths, looking for who and what she needed. Well of course there was the line for bloody Torchwood. She barely refrained from rolling her eyes about the fact they were going to be involved. There signs of UNIT, and the scattered individual paths connected to it. Backtracking a bit more, she looked for the strong individual paths that led into the mess. Ones that were fragmented, meaning something had gone wrong with what was "supposed" to be. There, she was starting to pick up on them. The names were very familiar. Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, The Doctor, Rose Tyler, she could see more notables and relative unknowns. These were the ones that would be easiest to track, and she had to start somewhere. Start to fix the mess, and more things would be revealed.
Out of them she selected one to start with. It was a rather complicated path and rather difficult to trace. However the sheer strength of it meant it was one of the important ones to fix first. It was greatly fragmented, so she started at its very beginning and traced it forward to the first break. There she had a place and time to go to. Having found what she had needed, she released the path-lines, and they faded out of easy sight.
The noise level of the crowd suddenly dropped, and there was a collective gasp. There was a small tugging on the leg of her trousers about knee height. Looking down she saw a small child, a little human girl with curly ginger hair, and bright green eyes. The crowd had grown even bigger, but this small child was the only one that dared approach her.
She knelt down to put herself at eye level with the little girl. The child was dressed in light blue overalls and a green jumper. She hugged a ratty brown stuffed wolf to herself, as she solemnly studied the Void Walker. "Are you her? Are you the one that the stories tell about that will help make things right, and make the monsters go away?"
Taken aback by the wistful question of the small girl, she studied the child for a moment before replying. She picked her words with care, if she was somehow woven into the stories of this reality, there was even far more going on here then she originally thought. "I'm not sure what you mean by that Little One. I am going to try to make things better that I can tell you."
The child nodded, accepting the answer with an intent expression on her face. Suddenly she thrust the ragged wolf toy at Void Walker. "Take this then; she'll help keep you safe." Astonished Void Walker tried to refuse. "I can't take that little one; don't you need her to keep you safe?"
Insistent, the little girl again pressed the wolf into her hands. "I got my Mama, you need someone with you. Please, take her and make things better?" She couldn't find it in herself to resist the little girl's gift so she carefully cradled the small soft toy in her hands.
A ginger haired woman had started edging closer, one eye on the child, one on Void Walker. The girl scampered over to the woman, probably her mother. Promptly she was scooped up and held tight. Rising to her feet Void Walker held out a hand. "Wait, does she have a name?"
The child smiled, beaming at the question as she bravely answered. "She's the Big Bad Wolf, and she'll keep you safe."
Void Walker held herself very still eyes fastened on the child. Carefully she tucked the toy in one of the pockets of her coat, its head slightly sticking out. "I will keep her safe for you, and one day I will find you again little one, to give her back."
The ginger woman backed away into the relative security of the crowd. The whispers had grown during the exchange. More and more people were there, staring at her. Suddenly she needed to get away from this crowd. She was completely enclosed on all sides. So she would do what she did best. Striding forward the air around her rippled and the crowd gasped as she disappeared from their sight.
It was time to go find this universe's Jack Harkness.
