What's this? An update? Hey guys, sorry for being away for so long. I hope you enjoy reading about the Time War.

On a side note: This is my own personal opinion of how the war went. I tried to stay as accurate as possible to my knowledge of the war but please let me know if I made any huge errors.

Songs for this chapter: All the Strange, Strange Creatures; The Futurekind (both from Series 3 soundtrack); The Greatest Story Never Told (Series 4 soundtrack)

The Time of the War

She climbed back to her feet. "You didn't need to do that; I've still got a grenade left."

He took a deep breath before answering. "So why… didn't you… use it?"

She gave him a grim smile from under her cuts and smudges. "Can't just go throwing my last weapon away now can I? Plus I knew you'd be along."

He glared at her, getting his breath back. "And what if I wasn't?" He asked, pulling his own grenade from his belt loop.

Her smile didn't falter. "Then I'd use it." She snatched the grenade from his hand, ripped the ring out with her teeth and tossed it over her shoulder like an apple. Three seconds later, several daleks screamed as they were torn apart.

Noticing them among the rubble, he scooped the glasses up off the ground and brushed them off. "Be more careful. Those backup contacts only last a few minutes at most."

She snatched the glasses from his hand and slid them back on. "I had it under control. They were only off for two minutes, I had a count going." She pulled on the ends of her leather soldier's jacket until it lay flat across her bony shoulders again.

He only shook his head disapprovingly. "How's your head?" He asked her.

"Churning."

He was not satisfied with that answer. He motioned her towards him. She leaned forward and pulled the glasses down so he could look into her eyes. They were normal. Her pupils were a little more dilated than normal but the clear portion of her irises still dominated the majority of her eyes. He nodded, satisfied that he would not need to poke around in her head just yet.

They both ducked as the wall behind them exploded in flames from the blast of a dalek ship.

"Did you find it?" She asked after they'd uncovered their heads to avoid the blast of heat.

He held up the ring of double-wired plasma explosives. "Right where they were supposed to be… though I can't say the same for my screwdriver… down!"

She dropped obediently into a low defensive position as he took out the last two daleks with his automatic plasma cannon. When she rose again, she held out his missing sonic screwdriver.

"A good soldier never leaves his best tool at home." She berated him as he tossed the now useless cannon aside and snatched the tool from her hand. The Architect brandished it in her face.

"Yes, and a good tool knows when not to wander off." He pocketed the screwdriver.

"I'm not your tool anymore." She informed him, without even the hint of a smile.

He hesitated just a fraction of a second before he responded. "You'll always be my tool. Just with different name." His hand stretched out, as if to pat her on the head or clap her on the shoulder but another blast sent them racing towards the room's courtyard door as the ceiling collapsed on their side of the room.

"Can you get this door open?" He yelled to her over the sound of metal and stone crashing around them.

"No problem." She whipped the pen out of her pocket and touched the pointed end to the door-panel. A small burst of gold light shot out of the end and splashed across the panel. She twisted her wrist and the golden splash began to reform itself into Old High Gallfreian runes. She shaped and pulled and scribbled until the entire patch formed the word: Open. With a final flourish, she pulled the pen free of the runes. They flashed brightly once then sank into the door without a trace. The panel beeped once and the door slid open.

"There's no need to use the Change function, the sonic function would have worked just as well." He informed her as they took up defensive positions on opposite sides of the open door.

She grinned at him as she wrote the word Heal on her arm with the pen. "But that's no fun."

He glared at her nonchalance. "So your idea of having fun is manipulating the fabric of the world at any chance you get?"

The smile melted off her face. "I'm a human among gods." She replied as the wounds on her face and arms closed. "I take what I can get."

He was silent for a moment. "I don't have any spare guns." He primed his ubiquitous plasma blaster. "You'll need to arm yourself until we can meet up with the platoon."

She nodded, slipping the pen back into its pocket in her soldier's jacket and attaching her remaining grenade to her belt.

He made sure his sonic and grenades were easily within reach and triple checked the ring of explosives was unarmed and attached securely to his jacket. "Ready?" She nodded. "Let's move out."

They burst through the door together. Straight into hell.

A dalek ray quickly separated them as they sprinted towards Arcadia's Barren Plain. Well, once it had been the Plain of Gold, Arcadia's finest growing place of good thoughts. Now it was a battlefield. In front of them, the daleks and the Time Lords waged war. He shot two daleks in quick succession with his plasma blaster as he sprinted for the Time Lord line. Two new gaping black holes ripped open in the already dilapidated ground where they had been standing. He leapt over the pile of twisted, scrap dalek metal, careful not to let it touch him. Even dead, it might still be able to transmit his DNA. And that would be disastrous.

They were returning from behind dalek ranks, their advance covered by the three Time Lord battalions currently engaging the daleks. The dalek ships had already arrived and were raining lasers and missiles on the mayhem. A maddening chorus of 'exterminate' filled the air between the explosions. From the Time Lord side came a volley of blasts, bullets and grenades, accompanied by the rallying yells and the screaming of regenerations. They had no air support. Not yet.

He glanced over at her. She was ahead of him a little ways because her primary focus was only speed, not attack. She slid her thin form between two daleks with about as much commotion as a breeze. Before they even realized she was there, she had leapt the hill and vanished out of sight below them. He shot them anyway and leapt after her.

They slid down the steep bank together, diving straight into the thick of the fighting on the plain. A plasma grenade went off just behind them, close enough to singe his jacket. A little too close. His eyes went to his companion even as he stumbled.

The blast knocked her off her feet but she got her hands under her and was up and running again without even falling to the ground.

She was agile, he'd give her that. Even without the enhancers he'd built into her clothes. She slid past enemies before they even realized she was there. Where others saw a wall, she saw openings. 100 years as a spritely child caught in a constant fight for survival would do that to you. That would make her what… 116 now? Give or take? He supposed he was 100 years older as well. Not that it mattered. What was another 100 years to a man who could live for thousands?

In a way, he supposed she was still aging. Only it never showed in her face or body. She never grew taller, or smarter for that matter. Her legs remained too long for her, her eyes just a little too large, her mind too weak for the things she could see. She had been writing in that damn book for far too long, adding pages as she ran out. She kept it in her right breast pocket, opposite the hueon pen he had designed just for her.

She dodged a plasma blast and ran up and off of a pile of scrap in order to clear the next line of daleks. He covered her with a grenade.

In the early years of the war, she had once asked him: "If I could escape? Would I age again?"

"You might." He had replied. "Or all 100 years would catch up with you all at once. No one's ever escaped a time lock, there's no way of knowing."

He was broken out of his thoughts by the approach of the front line of daleks. They knew that he and the girl were approaching. Half of them were spinning to take them out.

He ripped a grenade from his belt. "Shockwave!" He yelled, more for his own benefit than hers. She was already past them, making a dash for the Time Lord line. Nonetheless he waited until he saw that her fingers were in her ears before throwing the explosive. The shockwave grenade was a weapon he had invented sometime ago that the military hadn't gotten its hands on until very recently. Because of that, he was the only soldier who carried them. Good thing too.

The grenade went off with a pitiful explosion but a crippling shockwave quickly followed. The daleks closest to it were torn to shreds, all the rest within a 300 meter radius reeled from the noise and force. Up ahead, the girl winced but kept running. Human ears. So weak.

He dashed past the destruction and followed her into the Time Lord battalion's front line.

The going was much easier now that he didn't have to shoot every spare moment and keep a constant eye about. He put on speed and easily caught up with her as they reached the mid-station supplies.

She kicked at the weapons supply barrel as she ran past and a bowship rifle shot out of it and up into the air. She snatched it as she ran past. Just ahead was the ammunition cart, defended as always by the Supplier.

"Oi there! Look out behind ya, there's… what the..?" His warning was cut short as the girl reached him and crouched low to avoid the muzzle of his rifle.

She slid past him without a word, plucking a fresh laser generator cartridge from his belt as she went, not a single motion wasted. Before she was back on her feet, she had the weapon in her grip loaded and primed. She skidded to a halt and spun on her heel, taking out a descending dalek more by luck then by aim.

The Architect whirled around and fired off three shots, taking out three more daleks descending from above.

"Your Tool isn't authorized to handle that weapon." The Supplier told the Architect.

"Duck!" The girl yelled. Both men dropped as she fired several laser spears into the air above their heads. One pierced a dalek's eyestalk, another stabbed straight through the dalek equivalent of a neck. Dead, the creatures dropped soundlessly to the earth.

The Architect pulled the Supplier back onto his feet. The man nodded his thanks. "I won't… tell anyone…" He said.

The Architect winked at him, ignoring the cheeky grin from the girl.

"More are coming down from the ships…" The Supplier informed him as the three took up a defensive position. The Architect tossed his weapon behind him. Two seconds later it was back in his hand, loaded and primed with the new power pack the girl had installed for him.

He fired off a volley of shoots and ducked to avoid the smoking pieces of metal that fell. "Any sign of Air Support?" He asked when he could finally uncover his head.

The Supplier fired his own bowship rifle, nailing three daleks. "No." He told the Architect. "But we can hold them here, you get going! Get that thing to your squadron!"

Typical. Air Support was late so it came down to the foot soldiers. "I can help here," He protested as he shot down another dalek. "I've still got one shockwave grenade left, it can take them out before they land and stall the remainder…"

The Supplier reloaded before answering. "Very well then, I'll see what I've got to help you launch it."

The Architect turned to the supply barrel and kicked it twice. A battalion battlefield supply pack sprung out. He held it out towards to the girl. "Now, take these and get to rendezvous." he told her, unhooking the detonators from his jacket.

"Aren't you coming?" She asked in that stupid earth accent he'd never trained out of her.

He looped the detonators around her arm to avoid looking at her. "Keep moving." He shoved the supply pack into her hands and gave her a push. She didn't leave. She wanted to disobey, he could tell. She wanted to stay and try to help him. She didn't want to leave him behind. 116 and still her first impulse was to disobey him. But he ignored her. She would obey him. She always did because she knew she would die if she didn't. The Time War was unforgiving.

"Be careful." She finally said. "We need you." Then she turned and began running again.

He turned back to the Supplier. "Right, what have you got for me?"

"Oh never mind your grenade." The Supplier said, placing the butt of his rifle in the dirt and leaning on it. He jabbed a finger at the sky. "Air Support is finally here."

He looked up just as the onslaught of mental messages hit. Above his head, TARDISs whirled by, engaging the falling daleks before they could reach the ground. They were clear, he could move on. No point in using the grenade now, it would hurt more than it would help. The Architect felt his throat make a strange, jerking motion as he gazed up at the attack. Among all the sleek, decked out war-model TARDISs, flew a small blue box.

"We were wondering where you got to soldier." The Commander said as he and the girl slid to a stop at the rendezvous point. As usual, the Commander gave no hint of recognition for the girl; she was little more than a tool.

"I had some tools to pick up. Namely…" He brandished his screwdriver. The girl began rummaging through the supply pack she had picked up, pulling out energy pellets and hydrators for the rest of the battalion. The soldiers all took their rations without a word or even a nod of thanks.

The Commander nodded his approval. "How soon can you get those deployed?" He asked the Architect.

He detached the ring of explosives from his jacket and pulled the trigger tube out of the circle. "Soon as I have two minutes to reset the detonator." He got right to work.

"Good, the daleks are falling back." The Commander informed him as he worked and the girl continued to pass out rations. "We'll send out the evacuation signal, get everyone else out so we can set the detonators."

"I'll send out the signal sir." Said the Detector, swallowing the last of his hydrator. Finished handing out rations, the girl retreated silently to her place beside the Architect. He handed her his screwdriver so that he could use his programming tweezers. Lords did he hate wartime scarcities. He would give up his plasma blaster for a good set of programming clamps right now.

"I'm working out our attack pattern now sir." Said the Librarian from his vantage point beside the Hacker. The Commander nodded approval.

The Time Lord Battalion #1203 Special Task Force Arcadia Division was gathered on the far edge of Arcadia's Barrens, just outside the ancient Power Factory on top of Forgotten Hill, the place where good dreams became fuel and bad dreams were buried by the hundreds to be forgotten. Also, the perfect source of energy for a hungry, expanding dalek fleet.

Their squad was small, consisting of only 8: the Commander and his right hand man the Sniper, the Librarian in charge of strategy, the Hacker for security dismantling, the Detector for communications, the Spy for information science, The Architect and his girl for weapons maintenance.

But their purpose here was of the utmost importance.

"What does the security look like?" The Commander asked.

The Hacker pounded a few keys in her Cracker, a modified gift from the team's weapons maintenance crew. "Easily crackable." She said, holding the Cracker up so it could get a good scan of the building. "Keep in mind, the fuel is only explosive if first exposed to an electric shock. So we have to send a pulse through the fuses before we can blow it."

"How do we do that?" Asked the Sniper, playing with his prized bowship rifle.

The Hacker held up the Cracker so the rest of the battalion could see the scan. "Should be easy enough with a pulse gun, all we have to do it take down the shield and overload the system. One good shot will do. Or even just the shockwave from a plasma grenade. Any charge more powerful than that could be catastrophic."

The Librarian frowned. "How so?"

"Well, the fuel accumulates charges." The Hacker explained, pulling up a diagnostic. "So the greater the shock provided, the more charges it will have, the bigger the explosion."

"The troops are moving out." The Detector informed the Commander. "We can commence operation."

He nodded. "Hacker. How soon can you get that security down?"

"Give me a couple of minutes and the pulse gun and I can beam the signal right to the mainframe."

The Commander turned to the Architect.

"How are those detonators looking, Architect?"

"Nearly there sir." He replied as he soniced the casing back on to the trigger tube. All he had to do was wire the trigger for long-range detonation then arm the device. But as he tucked his screwdriver away to get at his amplifier, he heard a whimper. It was no louder than a breath but he knew that sound anywhere.

He glanced to his side. The girl was trembling and biting her lip so hard, a small bubble of blood was forming. Her hand twitched towards her right pocket. She was having a vision.

Detonators forgotten, he turned to her.

"What is it?" He whispered. "What do you see?"

Through the tinted eyepieces of the glasses, he could see her pupils dilating. "I… I… I'm going to… fall… falling… Arcadia…"

"Is she alright?" The Spy asked as the girl fell to the ground, twitching. The Architect was beside her in a dual heartbeat, his fingers reaching for her temples.

"No!" She swatted his hands away. "I… I have to see… I…"

She rocked back and forth, moaning. "Light… pain… falling… fail… FAIL! Death dying… light….. burning!" Torn between learning what she meant and saving her from the agony, the Architect watched. She twisted and shouted but in her native Earth language, not Gallfreian.

The Commander loomed over him. "Is she sick? Should we…?"

"She's having a fit." The Architect replied. "It happens occasionally. Don't touch her!" He warned as the Detector made a move to grab the girl's shoulders to hold her still. "She'll probably bite you. Let me." He reached for her temples. He never made it.

Suddenly, she sat bolt upright. "They're coming. They're here."

Before anyone else could react, a dalek ray shot out of nowhere and pulverized the ground at the Hacker's feet. She jumped backwards.

The entire battalion watched as what must have been two dalek squadrons crested the hill.

"Exterminate. Exterminate."

"Make for the courtyard!" The Commander yelled, pulling his weapon. "Hacker get that shield down! Librarian, arm the detonators! The rest of you defend!"

In the confusion of a defended retreat, the Architect lost sight of the girl. The frazzled battalion raced around the outer wall of the power station and down the slight incline towards the building itself. But before they could reach the building they had to cross the graveyard. The place where all those bad dreams were buried.

The daleks reached the outer wall just as the battalion reached level ground.

"Open fire!" Shouted the Commander. It was then that the Architect noticed the girl. She was beside the Commander, bowship rifle to her shoulder. She showed no sign of recoil from her fit.

The volley of plasma blasts and laser spears took out eight of the first ten daleks before they crossed the outer wall boundary. But more quickly filled the empty places in line.

The Architect's back hit the power station wall and he took a moment to look up at the stone above him. Then a dalek ray blasted the rock apart two inches from his nose and he was drawn back into the fight.

"The Time Lords will surrender! The Time Lords will be exterminated!"

The Commander took out a dalek with his blaster. "Then why the hell would we bother surrendering? Hacker! Now!" The Time Lady took aim up the wall and fired the pulse gun. The rippling wave vanished inside the power station.

"Security is off-line!" She called.

"Librarian! Get those detonators in place!" The Commander shouted.

No one could quite tell what happened next, all the Architect knew was that he fired his gun at the same moment the Spy tossed a plasma grenade at the same moment about five daleks all fired. Then someone screamed.

"My leg!" It was the Librarian. He was staggering away from the wall, his right leg as limp and lifeless as a piece of cloth. The detonators clattered to the ground.

The Architect dropped his blaster as it burned his fingers. It had taken the full blast of a dalek ray. His precious gun was dead.

No matter how fast they shot, the daleks were advancing faster. They were on the burial ground now.

"We can't hold them sir!" The Sniper shouted as he nailed a dalek through the eyestalk. He ducked as the one that took its place shot at his head.

The Commander was gritting his teeth, looking between the daleks and the wall behind them. "Fall back!" He finally commanded.

"We can't!" The Detector shouted as he reloaded his blaster. "They've got us cornered!"

The Commander scooped up the detonators from the ground and got his free hand around the Librarian to support his injured leg. But he said nothing. He made no move forward.

The Architect looked around. Daleks in front, wall behind. They were trapped. Backs against the wall. No way out.

"Run for the hill." The Commander and the Architect both turned in shock at the voice.

"Run for the hill." The girl said again. She opened her palm to show them what she was holding.

The Architect drew in a sharp breath as he saw what was in it. Of course… her last grenade. The one she'd never use unless absolutely necessary.

"You heard her, run!" He yelled, pushing the Sniper and the Detector forward. He gave the Commander a shove that he would have relished under less severe circumstances. "Keep shooting and run!" They took off, charging the first line of daleks. He turned back to her. Not quickly enough.

She popped the pin and threw it towards the daleks in front of them. Then she fell to the ground, her hands on her ears.

He didn't know how she ended up in his arms but the next thing he knew his feet were sliding on the hill and he was gently placing her down on the dirt.

"That… that did the trick didn't it?" She asked, with a hint of a smile.

He slapped her but not with as much force as he wanted too. "That was stupid." He told her. The others in the battalion were racing around the wall. It appeared everyone had survived the attack but several were wounded and most of their weapons were gone. The Sniper had a nasty cut along his left cheek but was still holding his rifle. The Hacker was trying to staunch the blood flowing from her right hand. The Librarian was still holding on to his dying body, gasping for breath and dragging his useless right leg behind him. The girl picked herself up and went to him with the supply pack but he shoved her away. He would regenerate rather than try to be healed.

The Commander (who by some miracle had only a dirty uniform as a battle-scar) informed them of the situation: "We'll have to abandon the mission."

"But sir, we…" The Spy's protest was cut off by a raised hand.

"All we have left are the detonators." The Commander said, holding up the ring of explosives he had managed to snatch up in the confusion. "The shockwave took out a good number of them but there's still no way we can charge back in there and survive long enough to get the detonators in place. Even if someone were to do that, there's probably enough to take out this squadron plus the one needed for the fuse box as long as they're spaced correctly. But they'd have to be touching the daleks to do any real damage…"

"But how?" The Sniper exclaimed. "We can't touch them! If they get Time Lord DNA…."

The girl glanced to the Architect. He met her gaze. Very subtly he nodded. The rest of the soldiers' conversation went unheard as he watched her.

For a brief moment, her chin fell to her chest. She drew in a deep breath before raising it again. The gun and supply pack were shrugged off her shoulders and placed gently on the ground. The jacket was next, her prized pen in its pocket. The glasses quickly joined it. She kept the necklace. It was the one thing she would never abandon. Without glancing in his direction, she nodded. She was ready.

He turned to the whispering men. "Commander." The man turned to face him.

"What is it?" The Commander asked, his face hard with resolve. In one hand was the ring of detonators in the other his comm. Their air support had already been called in. They were going to abandon it.

He took a deep breath. "I have a plan. We can take out this squadron and complete our mission while making it out alive."

The Commander's brow furrowed in confusion. "How?"

Out of nowhere, she dashed forward and snatched the ring of explosives from the Commander's hand.

"Hey! What…? Tool!" The startled Commander made a grab for her. But she was gone, leaping over the hilltop and vanishing into the graveyard of dreams.

The Architect scooped up the discarded jacket. "Come on!" The rest of the battalion broke and ran for the pick-up location, the Sniper with the Librarian thrown over his shoulder. The Commander was running but still glancing over his shoulder at the child taking on the battalion of daleks.

"But… that… with the amount of charge provided by that grenade… that explosion is going to be…" While the Commander figured out what the Architect already knew, The Architect pressed the call button for him. "Air Support? We're ready."

The TARDISs descended upon the group as they reached the flat stretch of the Barren Plains and the squadron quickly filed in, the Architect making sure the ship he hopped on wasn't a blue Earth phone box. As the rest of his squadron got into flying positions, he looked back to the power station.

The explosives were cold and heavy in her hands. Her legs burned from the speed at which she was running. Their cries of exterminate! warned her and she dodged left, their shots missing her by less than a foot. Before they could re-aim, she had reached their front line. Her fingers flicked two explosives free and she sprang upwards.

She leapt over the leading Daleks, her hands slapping down on their shiny metal hoods, placing the explosives in place. Her hands burned as she pushed off of them to keep moving. Where her hands touched them, the metal glowed orange. The creatures faltered momentarily as they came in contact with new information. New DNA. She rolled as she hit the ground and sprang to a low crouch. Pivoting on the balls of her feet, her hands flew out to set new bombs on the next set of creatures.

The voices in her head warned her and she rolled forwards as the next line tried to fire, once again dodging death by inches. Her dive took her in between two daleks and she slapped another explosive in place. She came to a stop in front of the battalion leader. His weapon jumped right to her but again, she was too quick. She leapt into the air and flipped over the dalek's head. While still in the air, her hand flew down and slapped the explosive onto the cold metal shell. The monster's eye tried to follow her path and failed as she landed behind it, skidding to a stop against the power station's wall.

Slowly, the dalek battalion commander turned to face her.

"You are not Time Lord… you are not Dalek…. You… you…." It was shaking, trying to process this new information. It had touched DNA it had never known before. DNA that was primal and young. Vital, bursting with energy and potential. Different. Dangerous. DNA it needed.

It raised its weapon. "EXTERMINATE!"

She slapped the final circle onto the powergrid feed and flicked the detonator open revealing the trigger button inside. Exactly the same way she had seen herself do it in her vision. "Don't count on that saving you…"

As they left the ground and sped away towards freedom, the Architect was grabbed from behind and spun around. The Commander punched him square in the jaw.

"Blowing up an entire planet. An entire civilization, ruined! Reduced to ashes!" He socked the Architect again as he tried to get back to his feet. "That's what you've done here, Architect! You and your Tool."

Hesitantly, the Architect rose to his feet again only to be grabbed forcefully and pushed against the wall.

"And on top of that, she's ruining everything else as we speak!" He hissed in the wounded man's ear. "Now they have our DNA! If any dalek comes in contact with any Time Lord DNA they can extrapolate it and regenerate endlessly!" The Commander released him, looking disgusted.

The Architect wiped the trickle of blood from his chin and smiled drily at the jacket still clutched in his hand. "Good thing she's not a Time Lord then…" He glanced up at his stunned commanding officer. "And her name is no longer the Tool. I renamed her…"

Far away, the Scribe smiled and clicked the button.