"Tell me how this happened to you." The Doctor said softly.

The Shimmering Man

"I'm sure you've heard the rumors... that we've been experimenting in creating an artificial G.F" The formerly beautiful scientist started.

In truth The Doctor had only just heard about it that very day, due to Selphie, an energetic teenage girl he'd met but he nodded anyway.

"Well they're true." Steon continued, "You see, G.F's are powerful but rare and they also come with a major flaw when you use their strength."

"The memory loss." Martha interjected, the withered woman frowned but nodded. Clearly she didn't appreciate interruptions.

"We thought that if we could create our own G.F... in essence create life, we'd be able to control which part of the mind it makes it's home in not to mention mass producing Guardian Forces would greatly improve our military's defensive capabilities. We could make them safer, stronger!"

The Doctor glared at the aged woman, silent fury in his eyes but he remained quiet, Martha listened with intent to the story, but Selphie although paying attention couldn't keep herself from wandering around the room. The petite brunette trailed her hand along a desk as the scientist continued.

"The experiments were a trial..." Steon paused for breath, wincing in pain, "but eventually we created a creature that could exist as a real G.F does, both corporeally and symbiotically within a human mind. So we decided to test it, and I volunteered to house it... we didn't expect it to be so powerful, it burned up my body like kindling. I barely extracted it from myself before it killed me."

"Oh god..." Whispered Martha, covering her mouth, "Doctor?"

The Doctor shook his head sadly,

"I'm sorry but I can't help you." He said, "What you've done to yourself, what's happened to your body; it can't be reversed. The state of decay is too far advanced."

Martha knew what was coming next, she'd seen that look in his eyes before, Selphie had disappeared from view briefly, vanishing around the corner of the lab but The Doctor hadn't noticed, he knew what was happening to Steon even if she didn't.

"I'm sorry, I am so so sorry but you don't have long left."

"How long?" The woman asked.

"I can't be sure..."

"How long?" Her voice raised in anger, but the strength left it all too suddenly.

"...A week, at most."

The room fell silent, Selphie came wandering back into view, it was obvious she'd heard everything from the expression on her face. The group of four stood there completely silent. The Doctor needed to ask her questions but was no longer sure where to start, Martha just wanted to help the poor woman and Selphie couldn't believe how Steon was taking the news, she'd gone back to her desk, typing away. Just like that they'd been dismissed as if they were never there to begin with.

"Doctor Steon..." Martha began.

"Leave." The woman replied, "I have much work to do, and precious little time to do it in, even less then I initially believed."

"Shouldn't you, I dunno... go home and rest or something?" Selphie piped in

"What good would it do? No, best I stay here and make a contribution with my final hours."

"Before we go..." The Doctor began, "What do you know about the Nanotechnology project?"

Sighing, Steon turned to face them once more.

"Herred was furious when Highwind shut down the project. 'Too unstable' He'd said, so when Highwind went missing and Herred took his position, we all thought is was suspicious." The Doctor nodded thoughtfully, remaining silent.

"But Herred didn't reopen the project, he said..."

Suddenly the wall burst inwards and the metallic figure stepped through. It had changed drastically in the short time since it had chased The Doctor and his companions down the hallway. It's face now had features. A nose, a mouth, and hollow lifeless eyes. It moved forward grabbing the withered scientist and forming shackles from it's hands around her wrists, dragged her back the way it came. Selphie reached for her Nunchaku, but the Doctor placed his hand in front of her.

"Don't!" He told her sternly, "You wouldn't be able to hit it, you're more likely to hurt Steon!"

He then turned his attention to the increasingly lifelike technological creation.

"And whoever's controlling this, I bet you can hear me. So I'm asking you now, let her go." The Doctor's voice became grim, "Let her go, or I will stop you. Whatever it is you want, you don't have to get it this way, you don't. Just let her go."

For a moment everything was still, then the silver creature, smashed the ceiling directly above causing it to partially collapse and cover it's escape.

"We've got to get after it!" Selphie insisted.

"By the time we get round it'll be long gone." The Doctor told her matter-of-factly, "I don't believe it showed up to stop us from finding out who's behind it. I bet it wanted Steon for another reason." He rushed over to her computer and sat down, pulling out his sonic screwdriver.

"There must be something on here." His voice was absent, talking as if to distract himself from his inability to save Doctor Steon.

Glancing over the files, the Time Lord found a file marked "Nanotech Research" and opened it, his eyes taking in every detail.

"I think I found out what Steon was going to tell us." He said to his companions "Herred didn't reopen his research because it was too costly to correct the conversion technology."

"Wait... why would Steon have Herred's files on her private computer?" Martha asked, The Doctor and Selphie looked to her, confused.

"I'm no expert or anything but why would someone working on a completely different project keep tabs on someone else's work. Especially after the work has been shelved?"

The Doctor's eyes widen and he stood sharply, knocking the chair over as he did.

"What is it?" Asked Martha

"We've got to find the President!"

The Time Lord took off, dashing out of the office, with Selphie and Martha quick on his heels. The two girls cast each other questioning glances.

It had taken some convincing, but he'd managed to get persuade Laguna... persuade his father to let him follow Herred. For Squall so many things didn't add up; the two strangers at the train station, the man of metal, the mysterious disappearances involving Drawtech... Squall had been in enough battles to know that his gut instinct was often right, and his instinct was telling him that Herred was involved, hell he'd practically threatened The President of Esthar in his own office. Sighing the young man stopped and leant against a wall, rubbing his brow in frustration... perhaps he was just too close to the case, as much as it still was uncomfortable for him he was beginning to see Laguna for what he was – his dad, and the way that the so called 'scientist' had spoken to him, it had bothered him greatly.

Continuing on, Squall stopped when he came to a corner, glancing around. There was Herred in all his self righteous glory, the man was currently telling off a child whom, presumably had bumped into him, Squall was pretty sure he heard the words "some respect" "lucky I'm in a hurry".

What an idiot... Squall thought angrily, before long Herred was on the move again, so Squall started following him.

A gleam caught the young soldier's eye, like light reflecting off a metallic surface and it was moving too, shimmering as it came closer. Instantly the SeeD reached for his gunblade.

"Herred! Watch out!" Leonheart called out, causing the scientist to turn to face him. Instead of seeing Squall however, he saw the artificial body reach out for him and pull him towards it.

Struggling Herred screamed a wordless jabber, trying his hardest to escape it's grip.

The blue blade of Squall's custom designed gunblade, cut through the the shimmering man... but did not come out the other side, the only thing that remained was the trigger and the part of the blade with the decorative wings on them. Squall looked at where his blade had been in confusion, briefly thinking that Rinoa was going to kill him for destroying the blade she'd had made for him, but his thoughts instantly focused on the matter of hand. Disgarding the now useless trigger, Squall put his fingers to his forehead and began concentrating.

A flurry of magical attacks fame from Squall, first, ice, then lightning, fire. More Ice, a kick to the frozen tech, shattered it, but it simply reassembled. The teenage warrior took a step back picking up a discarded pipe and using it as a means of defense. The robotic figures hand reached out and Squall tried to block with the pipe, only for the long pipe to become too shorter pipes. Growling in frustration, Squall got some distance between him and the cybernetic creature. He was going to need time to summon this next attack.

A turret of fire appeared and a large demon like figure formed, as Squall took a step back. The figure had horns, a deep scorched brown skin and a flaming red mane. It snarled and roared at the deadly experiment before leaping into the air.

Silently Squall urged Ifrit to hurry, but the demon paid him no heed and Squall cursed the creature for it's delay, glancing at what was left of Herred's body further back, but the Lion showed no fear.

At least I can end it here, so no one else dies.

Ifrit rained hellfire down from above, but before the attack could connect, the silver body slinked into a liquid form and vanished away into a crack. Ifrit snorted in digust and vanished back to it's resting place.

The stoic young man flinched and turned away in time to see his father, Selphie and the others come rushing up to him.

"You're too late." Squall said grimly, "I couldn't stop it."

Selphie gasped and turned away, Martha looked like she was about to throw up, even as a med student with everything she'd seen... she looked to the Doctor, as if he could somehow make this right, instead she saw a familiar look in his eyes. Whoever was controlling the creature had just made their biggest mistake.

"Aw jeez..." Said Laguna, a harsh look in his soft eyes, "The guy was a jerk but... for Hyne's sake."

"This ends now." The Doctor stated firmly, "And I know how to end it. Come on, we're going to meet the puppet master."

Doctor Steon didn't turn to face them when they entered her office, instead she just sagged further into her chair, sighing with irratation.

"I would have liked to have my new body digest Herred whole, but I wasn't expecting the boy to have a G.F"

The Doctor stepped closer, raising his hand. Squall who had been about to follow simply stopped, his military training kicking in, The Doctor seemed to be a leader, so Squall let him lead.

"You would think that creating a body made of nanites would only require the death of one person but the conversion process eats up half of the raw material you see. Herred wasn't wrong when he said his technology wasn't cost effective. He was hoping the company would make some breakthroughs over the next couple of years and go back to it. That's when I found it."

"But you're still just a Gaian, you can't transfer your mind into a body of steel. That sort of technology doesn't exist on this planet yet... besides I've seen what a cyberbody can do to the mind."

Steon laughed, a cold, brittle, mocking laugh and finally turned.

"You said I had a week, Doctor. But the truth is this body is going to expire in a matter of hours and I can't live in a dead mind."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed.

"You're not Steon..." He said "The artificial G.F... you were never destroyed, were you? You just hid. Using your hosts memories to pass yourself off as her."

"How astute, Doctor. Very good."

The old woman's body gobbled over to the rubble filled hole in the wall.

"Your kind created me! Prodded and poked me and then when I was too powerful, you tried to have me killed! Is that fair? I deserve to live!"

"So did Doctor Steon and Professor Herred! How they treated you, that doesn't make what you're doing right!" Cried Selphie

The G.F chuckled again and shook Steon's head.

"It doesn't matter, you can't stop me now."

From the cracks in the rubble behind her the shimmering man formed. It was apparently complete, from top to bottom it was essentially a made man. Steon closed her as, then spazzemed and collapsed, Martha's instinct to heal kicked in and she tried to run towards the woman but Laguna grabbed her and held her in place.

Then for the first time... the Shimmering Man spoke. It voice was horse, new and unused.

"This body can sustain me Doctor... I have what I want."

"You've killed innocent people, you've murdered them." The Doctor said, "I can't let you go."

The creature scoffed.

"How are you going to stop me, Doctor? You know you have no weapons that can harm me."

"True," The Doctor replied with a nod "But I have this. It's my sonic screwdriver. I also had a good look over the files on the nanotechnology that makes your new body. Fascinating, really. You see, I happened to read that amongst other things, that the signal that holds that body together is generate from a "control bot" for lack of a better term and that it sends the signal telling the body to be a chair... or a desk, or a person via a certain frequency."

The Doctor's voice became hard" A frequency I can use my Sonic Screwdriver to cancel out."

With a press of a button, the blue light at the top of the small cylinder lit and the whirring sound activated.

"No Doctor please... don't!"

Suddenly, the metallic monster began vibrating. It tried talking again but instead it's jaw fell off and splashed to the ground in a puddle of lifeless metal. The body shook itself apart and melted, leaving a lifeless pool of silver on the floor.

"Is it dead?" Cautioned Martha,

"Without a willing mind to transfer itself into, the G.F had nowhere to go... it died along with the technology." The Doctor said as he picked up tiny silver dot and crushed it between his fingers. "Control bot's been destroyed... no way it can come back now."

"Doc...tor?" a raspy voice called out.

The group turned in surprise to see the withered Doctor Steon on the floor conscious. The Doctor walked over to her, glancing up when Laguna knelt down on her opposite side.

"I'm sorry..." She whispered, "It was so strong... and I was so weak."

He shushed her gently.

"Don't worry about this stuff," Laguna told her, "We can handle it, just... y'know rest or..."

The President finished his clumsy sentence in a whisper.

"rest or whatever... you can deal with it later."

Steon smiled.

"Thank yo..."

And then, she was gone.

To be concluded.

Author's Note: I apologize for the poor quality of this chapter when compared to others, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the scenes I could picture in my head to sound right in prose. Still, I did the best I could and I hope you all enjoy the result. Stay tuned for the Finales. Yep. As in more than one.

Coops.