Chapter One: Last Words

Ace was feeling rather pleased with herself. More specifically, she was feeling rather pleased with the speed and efficiency involved in moving pretty much the entirety of the Ranulph Fiennes Bunker into a (seemingly) small, enclosed box in what couldn't be more than just about five minutes – no small feat, when you considered just how many people there were. At an estimate, there were currently close to four hundred and fifty people currently occupying the TARDIS console room, which seemed to have expanded specifically in order to fit everybody in. It was probably the most crowded that Ace had ever seen the time machine, especially since there were usually no more than three people inside at any given time.

The plan seemed to have gone off smoothly, for a change. Ace rather liked it this way, although there was still the small problem of the delegates, who were all slowly realizing that they didn't need translators anymore, and that the 'panic room' that they had all entered into was a lot bigger on the inside than it had first appeared.

Well, whatever. Hopefully, if there were any explanations needed later on, the Doctor would be the one handling it, not her. And speaking of which...

She clicked down the talk button of her walkie-talkie. "Everybody's in," she reported to the Doctor. "Delegates, soldiers – the works."

"Excellent," came his almost-instant reply. He sounded legitimately pleased with the situation. "And I think we've made a breakthrough of the rather crucial sort."

Ace's eyebrows raised slightly. "Well, that was quick. Want to share?"

"No time," said the Doctor. "I'll explain –"

"Later, yeah. I know." She rolled her eyes; this was a particularly tiresome in-joke that was barely even a joke anymore. "This better be good, Professor."

"It is," he promised, "or rather, it has the potential to get rather nasty if you don't do something for me right now. I need you to find a small red switch located underneath the TARDIS console. It should be close to the central column."

"All right, I'll take your word for it. Near the central column?" Ace held the walkie-talkie to her ear with one shoulder as she leaned down to examine the space underneath the console. "All I can see is some sort of access point, Doctor. And it's welded shut."

There was a brief muttered curse from the Doctor, and then – "of course, I must have sealed it up. Stupid. Stupid, stupid. Ace, you're going to need to find a way to prise it open –"

Before he whatever he was going to say could be heard, something else obscured all noise in the TARDIS – a loud bang, accompanied by a vivid flash of light that caused everybody gathered to cry out in alarm and attempt to shield their eyes. Ace gritted her teeth and squinted – there was something forming on the other side of the room, a vaguely humanoid shape that was becoming more and more distinct by the moment. And then, within slightly less than five seconds, the ball of light exploded, quite suddenly, throwing everybody who hadn't had the sense to back off away from it – into the wall, sprawling across the floor.

"Good morning!" yelled a new, unfamiliar voice exuberantly, and Ace, who had been shielded from most of the blast by the console, looked around the edge cautiously to see the source of it.

There was a man, balancing on one leg for apparently no reason at all, and everything about him made no sense. There was something about his geometry that didn't quite seem to be right – it looked like he had been constructed on a different plane of reality to the one that he was currently existing on. His scarf – long, multi-colored, strangely familiar; and his hair was – well. It was.

"You know, just a thought," continued the man, tapping his chin in a theatrical manner and exaggerating a frown. "Maybe senseless violence isn't the best solution to all of my problems. Like, I know that some people manage to do things in life without killing a bunch of people every day, and recently, I've been thinking to myself – hey, why not try it? Oh- whoa!" He looked down into his hands, rather suddenly. His eyebrows rose markedly. "What's this? – where did that gun come from?"

He swivelled on his heel, brushing past terrified, speechless delegates and soldiers that were raising their guns tentatively in his direction, and hopped up to sit ever-so-casually on the edge of the console, examining the laser-gun that had appeared, apropos of nowhere, in his grip. He twirled it absently from hand to hand. "Okay, what was I saying? Something about... not shooting people? I really can't remember." He turned from person, appealing to them with widened eyes. "Somebody? Anybody?"

"Put the gun down, toerag," Ace snapped, rising from her temporary hiding spot behind the console.

"Oh! Hello there!" Now the man was flipping the gun around just one hand, seemingly without any worry that it might go off by accident. He tossed it up and caught it neatly, and there was something dangerous in the not-entirely-pleasant smile that he shot in her direction. "Dorothy McShane – what a pleasant surprise! I suppose you're going to try to stop me from doing – well, whatever. You hero types are all the same."

"I said, put the gun down." Ace's teeth were gritted. "I don't know who you are or how you got in here, but –"

The man yawned loudly, cutting her off. "You know, going back to that thing from earlier. About not killing a bunch of people? Yeah. It was a nice thought when I didn't have a gun in my hand." Flip, flip. "But, y'know." He caught it properly, and swung around to aim it at the nearest person – a delegate who Ace didn't even know the name of. "That's kinda boring. New opinion on pacifism!" The safety catch went off, and the laser gun clicked once. The man smiled, and there were far too many teeth inside his mouth and they were all far too sharp. "Basically, fuck it."

The console room exploded with the sound of laser fire and screaming – and above all of it, the madman's laughter, sounding like a million mirrors shattering. In the center of it all was Ace, staring at the man in complete disbelief.

"Professor," said Ace in a low whisper, gripping the walkie-talkie so tight that her knuckles were beginning to go white. "Remember how you said that nobody could get into the TARDIS?"

A crackle, a pause. "I do. What's-?"

"Somebody's in here, with us," she said, cutting across him, "and he's got a gun. He – he just appeared, right out of nowhere, and shot five people."

The man in question grinned like a lunatic, and theatrically blew some non-existent smoke off the end of the futuristic-looking laser weapon he was holding. "Four-point-five, I think you'll find!" he corrected, loudly and cheerfully, nudging a body with his foot. "Ah, yes – look here, this one right here – she's still alive. I don't consider it a proper shot unless they're dead, you know?" He raised the gun once more, and pointed it at the unfortunate woman. "So why not make it a full set, hm?"

By this point, Ace had rather empathically had enough. Breathing heavily, she slammed the walkie-talkie onto the console, and stalked up to the man, ignoring the faint sound of the Doctor asking over the radio, in increasingly panicked tones, what was going on. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in the TARDIS?" she hissed – eyes narrowed, fists clenched, practically vibrating with anger.

The man seemed to find this almost amusing, but he lowered the gun to his side anyway. "Oh, me?" he said lightly. "I'm Nobody."

"I asked you a question-" Ace began, furious.

"And I gave you an answer," interrupted the man – saying the words slowly, as if explaining a simple concept to a particularly dim child. He rolled his eyes in an exaggerated fashion – Ace noticed for the first time that they were dark, slightly reddened slits, like a feral, alien cat. "I just told you who I am. I'm Nobody No-One! I'm a Word Lord! I'm from a universe forty-five billion dimensions to the left this one, and you lovely folk have very recently given me an open invitation to just wander into this gorgeous TARDIS of yours!"

"We never gave you any sort of invitation, you dirtbag," Ace spat.

"Oh – yeah, no, I don't think you, personally did," said Nobody, apparently unconcerned about just how angry Ace was. "The Doctor, though..."

"You're lying!" she yelled. "Why would the Doctor let you in here? You're insane!"

"It couldn't be my charming personality and incredible social skills?" Nobody offered.

"You just shot five people!" Ace screamed.

"Well, we can't all be perfect," Nobody said, shrugging in a manner that indicated he didn't care in the least, "and speaking of which – let's bring that number up to six!" He aimed the gun over his shoulder, and fired without looking. Behind him, a tall Russian man – who had been attempting to get to the TARDIS doors while Nobody's attention was held away – fell to the ground with a choked gurgle. "Oh, I guess he's dead now. Itchy trigger finger – you know how it is."

"You're mad!" Ace yelled. "They – he wasn't doing anything! You're completely insane!"

"Actually, it's kind of funny you should mention that," said Nobody with a contemplative look on his face. "Because I'm not insane, but a frankly ridiculous amount of people have been telling me I am lately. Which is absurd, because, well, look at me!" He gestured to himself with the barrel of the gun. "But there's got to be some reason people keep making assumptions – oh, hang on a minute." He leapt off the edge of the console, and shot another delegate, straight through their heart. This time, the victim hadn't even been doing anything at the time, only cowering in the corner of the TARDIS and muttering to herself indistinctly in Chinese. "Pew! Sorry about that, itchy fingers, etcetera, etcetera. Plus, I really didn't like the way she was looking at me."

"She wasn't even looking at you, you lunatic!"

"Exactly – I so do love to be the centre of attention, don't you?" He turned that sharp, impossible grin onto her. "Now, where was I? Oh, right – insanity. Me. It might be the hair, do you think? Maybe I should change my hair." He ran a hand almost self-consciously through it. "But I do so love the hair..."

"Get out of the TARDIS!" Ace screamed. Her face was turning red and her voice was starting to get raw from yelling, but she didn't care. The only thing she especially cared about at that moment was the fact that she had no weapons on her and none close by, but that was only secondary compared to her complete outrage over this man and his actions. "You don't lay another finger on another one of these people! They are under my protection! Take your hair and your scarf and your gun, and get the fuck out of my home!"

There was a brief silence. It didn't last for long.

"Oh, wow," Nobody said. He didn't seem intimidated at all by her, more... impressed, as if he had just watched a particularly surprising theatrical performance. "Did you-? Did you just threaten me? And order me around?"

Ace just growled wordlessly, apparently out of things to say to him.

Nobody looked surprised now. "Gods above, it's been so long since somebody tried to tell me what to do. I... you know what? I rather think I missed it. Do me a favour and do that again."

"These are people's lives you're playing with!" Ace hissed. "Do you think this is some sorta game?"

"Hm... well, yes – yes, actually, I do. It's better than Monopoly, at any rate." He levelled an amused look in her direction. "Go on! Tell me not to shoot anybody else."

"I've had quite enough of this!" said Captain Hurst, the commanding officer that had come with Ace in order to help protect the delegates. He stepped forwards, unholstering his own gun, and aimed it at Nobody, who didn't even flinch, only smiling. "Miss Ace, please step back."

And Ace, rather looking forwards to this already did, and the Captain aimed and fired without preamble, but instead of shooting, the gun only produced a click. The Captain looked down at his gun in confusion.

"That's the thing about this place," Nobody said off-handedly. "As long as you're inside the walls of the TARDIS, you're subject to this neat little thing that the Time Lords like to call," he made quotation marks in the air with his fingers, "'temporal grace'. It means that your weapons just don't work here. Which is handy if the person you're trying to stop is subject to those laws, but –" he waggled his laser gun in the air pointedly. " –guess which one of us is not human, not subject to those laws, and has a really cool gun?"

Ace saw what was coming next before it even happened, and had already opened her mouth to yell in protest, but Nobody was faster than her. In less time than it would take you to blink, Nobody had fired again, and Captain Hurst was lying dead on the floor, his gun still in his hand and his eyes blank and staring.

"And another one bites the dust!" Nobody sang cheerfully. "Ah, fun times, fun times – ahh, we're really building up a collection of dead bodies in here, aren't we? Maybe we should have an exhibition! Or a corpse party! I hear those are all the rage nowadays."

Ace was shaking now. "Why the fuck did you do that?"

"Well, he was going to shoot me," Nobody said, returning to his position on the console and crossing one leg over the other. "Turnabout is fair play, you know! Now, let's see- there's... hm, one-two-three-four — well, let's say four-hundred-twenty people still alive, excluding you and me. Plenty left!"

"Left for what, you lunatic?"

"That... is entirely up to you!" Nobody's voice lowered considerably, and his eyes narrowed. "Well? Tell me not to shoot anybody else!"

"Why should I?" Ace yelled back at him. "It's not like you're going to listen-"

"Wrong answer!" Another delegate hit the ground, the hole through his chest sizzling. "Ha! – although that one wasn't as much fun, he didn't even try to run–"

"Why are you doing this?!" Ace demanded.

Nobody tapped his gun to his lips, and pondered this for a moment. "Hm... I really don't know, to be honest. It might be because I'm bored – that seems likely! Although it's equally as likely that I'm doing it because this duologue between the two of that we've got going here... well, it's scintillating. Absolutely top quality character dialogue. Should we do some more?"

Instead of responding, Ace lunged suddenly – but not at Nobody. Instead, she went directly for the button on the console that she knew would open the TARDIS doors. And they did, swinging open immediately with much more speed than they normally ever did, as if the TARDIS herself was as anxious about the entire situation as most of her passengers were.

"Get out!" Ace called to the remaining delegates and soldiers, moving quickly and putting herself physically in-between them and the Word Lord, who looked as amused by the situation as he had been for the last few minutes. "Don't talk, don't try to do anything, just get out as fast as you can –"

They barely needed encouraging. There was a sudden mad rush for the exit, which Nobody did absolutely nothing to stop until the very end, when the last few people were cramming themselves through the open doors.

With a sudden click of his fingers, the door slammed shut, leaving just him, Ace, and a Canadian dignitary inside the console room. The Canadian, for his part, looked completely terrified, and cast quick, jerky glances around the room before beginning to tug repeatedly on the closed door. Ace dove back to the console and started pounding furiously on the button for the doors. It didn't have any effect at all, although the TARDIS was apparently just as distressed at this situation as she was – the lights began to flicker erratically, and somewhere in the distance an alarm bell was chiming.

"And now we're alone again," Nobody sighed theatrically, sliding off the console to stand in the middle of the console room. "Just you and I and the stars. Oh, and our third wheel over here," he added, shooting a look at the man, still tugging ineffectually on the doors.

"Get away from him, scumbag," Ace growled, abandoning the console and curling her hands into tight fists.

"Or you'll what? Fight me? Now, I'd pay to see that." He sauntered over, quite casually, towards the sealed exit, channelling the mood of somebody going on a nice, relaxing stroll in the park.

"I –" Ace began – but Nobody, quick as a cobra striking, had already grabbed the man.

"Go on! Beg me not to shoot this man!" he yelled, restraining the unfortunate delegate with seemingly no effort at all – wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing his hand over the man's mouth so tight that it seemed that he could barely breathe. He tapped the barrel of his gun against the side of the man's head. "Plead with me. Convince me not to do it!"

"Fuck you!" screamed Ace, nearly in tears. "I know you're gonna do it whether I beg or not – there's no point! Leave us alone!"

"Hmm..." Nobody was considering again, doing the theatrical gun tap against his lips, but this only lasted for a second. "...nah. No fun that way. All right, ten seconds left to live!" He raised the gun back to his victim's head – there were now tears running down the poor man's cheeks. "Nine! Eight –"

Sorry, Professor, thought Ace, who had only lasted this long because of something that the Doctor said once that went something something you're no use to me like this, but at this point all self-control was gone. And with the absence of her baseball bat...

She charged at him, intent on getting that gun out of his hands and maybe pummelling him within an inch of his life in the process – she had the element of surprise on her side, he would never see it coming. But Nobody No-One had already flicked his wrist at her, and instead of hitting him, she hit an invisible force that threw her backwards through the air and hit the wall with a hideous thump.

She let out a yell of pain and shock, already trying to struggle back to her feet. Even through the blood rushing in her ears and the tears swimming in her eyes, she could still see and hear Nobody firing that threatened shot directly at the Canadian dignitary – and she knew that he was already dead.

"And then there was one!" Nobody said cheerfully, coming over to kneel casually in front of her. "I wonder – your pride wouldn't let you beg for anybody else's lives, but would you beg for your own?"

"So that's it," Ace spat, raising her head to meet his eyes. "You're gonna kill me. Was that what this was all about, from the very beginning?"

"Well, obviously I'd prefer not to." Nobody shrugged, leaning backwards, tilting slightly on one heel. Ace noticed he was wearing basketball sneakers – brand new red-and-white ones, looking like he had just taken them right off the shelves. "It wasn't my intention coming in here, but, you know. One thing led to another, and now here we are. Or rather, here you are, and you're about to die!"

The console was beeping wildly in patterns that didn't make any sense and beneath her, Ace could feel the TARDIS thrumming – a panicked, constant staccato of a pattern that she could only recall the timeship having done very few times before, and every single one of those times was when the Doctor had been critically injured in some way. Which really didn't bode well for her right now, although she kind of knew that already.

"Any last words, Dorothy?" Nobody asked, a sadistic sort of twinkle in his eyes. "Apologies? Wishes? Or maybe... you're going to plead for your life?" His expression obtained a sort of unholy glee. "Oh, please do – I might even let you survive if you do that! Scout's honor! It's worth a try, right?"

Ace punched him. Or tried to, anyway – she got a nice, wide swing in, that would have broken his jaw at the very least if it had landed. But Nobody raised a hand and caught it easily, not breaking eye contact once. He grinned. "Aw, that was cute. You should probably start begging now, though."

Shocked but not entirely surprised by this, Ace met his gaze evenly, and forced out the words from between her gritted teeth. "Fuck off," she said, ignoring the TARDIS, whose humming and beeping was very much resembling a warming. "Nobody tells me what to do."

She had entirely expected him to just get on with it at that point – to shoot her; to murder her like he had done to all of those people. But that wasn't what happened. Instead, he dropped his hand suddenly, and the gun in it abruptly vanished, like it was never there in the first place.

And then he smiled.

"You know," he said, "that's exactly what I was hoping you'd say."

Thrum, thrum, beep-beep-beep. The TARDIS was definitely panicking and now Ace was too. She had almost preferred it when the gun was in his hands, because looking down the barrel of a futuristic laser gun was infinitely more preferable than having to look into his eyes – those madness-darkened, awful cat-like eyes. And then there was that terrible feeling creeping over her – the feeling that she had just done something terribly, fatally wrong that she wasn't yet aware of.

"Dorothy," he said. "Won't you be a good girl and disappear back to my CORDIS for me?"

And then Ace was gone.