Doctor Who : The Nightmare Child
Chapter Four : Cataclysm
The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship... Everything has its time. And everything ends. – Sarah Jane Smith
In Memory of
Elisabeth Sladen
1948-2011
A Growing Darkness
"You play a dangerous game," said the Black Guardian. His face ageless, neither old nor young, though in it was written the terrible memory of many haunting things his dark eyes have seen, set like coals that could leap suddenly into a raging fire. His robes and hair was as dark as the shadows of the darkest night, such blackness in living thing, man has never seen before nor imagined in mind.
"The games are immaterial," snapped the White Guardian calmly, the light of stars in her bright eyes, grey as a clear and cloudless night, thought and knowledge in her glance, as of one who has known many things that the years may bring. 'What matters are the stakes."
"You take such high risks however," taunted the Black Guardian sinisterly, his voice turning high and cold. "Has it become far too personal for you that it clouds your wisdom and judgement?"
"Your tongue runs on when speaking of my decisions," answered the White Guardian, her expression unchanged. "Surely you ought to concentrate on your own?"
The Black Guardian stared quietly for a moment, arched an eyebrow, picked up a dark piece and made his move upon the board.
"Far too simple," hissed the Black Guardian imperturbably. "The time of my thought is mine to spend, but I fear for your champions. They may have the Champion of Time on their side, but time is soon to run out..."
Then there was silence, for the shadows grew and drew nearer.
World Invasion : London
The skies of London blazed with terror. The city's shroud was sliced by intersecting flames of laser cannons and punctuated by explosions; contrails of debris raining from the skyscrapers became tangled ribbons of dark cloud till they hit the ground crashing craters in a heap of bricks, stone and dead men.
Hundreds upon hundreds of alien ships, of differing sizes and shapes, poured endlessly from the terrible wound in the sky above, like a gaping hole into an eternal abyss, firing bolts of light and thunder onto the unsuspecting city, vaporizing the streets and buildings with rending booms.
Stunned beings watched in horror from below, as they ran and screamed, losing all rationale and certainty as the city around them fell into flames. The Palace of Westminster now barely recognizable as the missiles fell and flattened it into rubble and fire. Big Ben's Tower crashing down upon the poor souls beneath it.
It's a nightmare, and no one can wake up. Humanity quailed at the darkness that enveloped them.
The battle up above, from the inside is a storm of confusion and panic, of particle beams flashing past your ship so close that your cockpit rings like a broken alarm, of the boot-sole shock of concussion missiles that blast into your cruiser, killing people you've trained with and eaten with and played and laughed and bickered with. From the inside, the battle is desperation and crying terror and the stomach-churning certainty that the whole galaxy is trying to kill you.
Inside, in the eye of the storm, arrived Delta Force, in a prototype heli-gunship, out manoeuvring cannon blasts and ion lasers as it progressed forth to their objective. Several squadrons of UNIT London HQ's modified F-16 jet fighters streaked and flanked them immediately as they came into sight, providing support and security cover in the mad chaos in the sky.
The battle began. The aliens came and UNIT responded.
Wade watched on as the heli-gunship weaved about in the madness, finding itself right underneath the bright crack in the sky, though a far enough distance to think it safe to stick his head outside, just staring as the unending slew of enemy ships broke into their world with no resistance and simply turning London into ash and smoke.
"Uh-oh," he said, a tone of wary in his husky voice.
"Uh-oh," echoed the other voices in his head.
"Wade's done a wee-wee," he squeaked as he returned to his seat in the passenger bay and watched the fog of war stir in the cockpit with a queer desire.
"Dammit!," screamed the pilot as he twisted his ship around another explosion that could have peeled its armour and shield like an overripe banana. His cockpit rang a hundred warnings he could barely decipher. Even louder than the clatter of lethal shrapnel and the snarl of his engines. It hummed and rang with near hits from the laser fire of the enemy ships crowding space around him. "It's getting awfully crowded in my sky!"
"Malcolm Reynolds called," bellowed Jorge from the bay as he clutched his weapon tightly, as the crew were tossed and turned about violently in their seats. "He wants his lines back."
Seth muttered indecipherable prayers whilst Sgt Buck remained a stern aged expression, staring intently upon the proceedings in the cockpit though he felt no urge to intervene. Only Lady Christina seemed the axiom of calm, as she sat crossed legged and arms unconcernedly. It was as though this was something she had experienced so many times, the thrill has simply gone out of it for her.
"Bank left!" screamed John Hart exasperated from the co-pilot's seat, as his fingers danced madly across the controls. The heli-gunship jinked left in response, narrowly missing several ion beams.
They could barely see where they were going in the chaos and rush of dust and debris storm kicking about them. All they could use to guide themselves was the trust in the on board computer. If they were above the Thames River, Wade could barely even make it out from up here.
"Like a leaf on the wind!" encouraged Wade enthusiastically, smiling though the swarms of shrapnel and sizzling nets of particle beams danced near the bay doors, and a gushing blossom of flame from an explosion on their right, lashed close enough to touch.
"What does that even mean?" growled the pilot angrily, tightening his grip on the control yoke, as they surged past enemy fighters, fully aware of their presence.
But UNIT's F-16s came looping past, harrying away the aliens as best they could, firing their newly mounted turbo-lasers courtesy of Professor Edwin Bracewell.
The new weapons proved quite effective.
"Higher dammit!" barked John as a Sontaran fighter exploded into superheated gas, minutes where they had been, and the shock wave of debris and expanding gas rocked the heli-gunship; John fought the control yoke, barely keeping the aircraft out of a tumble that would have smeared them across an enemy cruiser's hull.
"You want to fly this ship?"
"Yes!"
"Well -you can't!" stammered the pilot, his eyes flashing towards John.
A mistake. In that moment of anger and frustration, that one second he had taken his eyes off his direction, it was time enough for a fatal mistake.
The on board threat display chimed a late warning: two missiles had remote sensor locks on them. Unavoidable cannon fire stitched the space ahead of them, till they met their target upon the hull of the gunship and the missiles streaked head on to them. With impossibly fast reflexes, the pilot jinked the control yoke hard right, and the entirety of the gunship rolled into an evasive spiral but it was still too late.
Explosions rocked them starboard and bow, one after the other, as they spiralled uncontrolled through a storm of scarlet fire and broken glass. A gust of stinging smoke filled the cockpit as John abandoned his grip on the controls in resignation and turned to the pilot.
"I take it back! I take it back! You fly!" cried John desperately.
The charred remains of the corpse's hands on the controls, replied in silence. His body had gone missing along with half the cockpit that used to be there.
"Ah crap," muttered John annoyed at the inconvenience of the pilot's death, grabbing hard onto the controls once more.
"What the hell was that?" barked Sgt Buck into the cockpit.
"We've been hit... a bit," answered John sarcastically as the gunship continued to make a fast uncontrolled descent. "Pilot's gone. Well except for his arms. They're still here. Not much use though. Controls are pretty much dead too."
"Can you get this thing on the ground?" shouted Buck.
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," laughed John nervously, all his blood draining from his already pale sunken face. "We're landing alright but this landing's gonna get... pretty interesting."
"Define interesting."
He paused and thought about it for a while.
"Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die?"
The vast battle that had ripped and battered London's sky began to flicker away from them as they fell under and began to descend out of its reach. Now a broken, fragment heli-gunship screamed through the air, coming in too fast, too steep, pieces breaking off to spread apart and stream their own contrails of superheated vapour and smoking flames from the missile strike. The rear half tumbled, explod ing in sections as it got...pretty interesting.
And in that moment, as the ship fell faster and faster, falling into London like a rock, though he grimaced at the scraps of burning hull flashing past them, Wade laughed and conjured a word fit for the time.
"GERONIMO!"
Descent
The dark is generous.
Its first gift to the Universe is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from us the truths of others.
The dark protects us from what we dare not know.
Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night's embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in day's harsh light. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that the dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it is day that is temporary.
Day is the illusion.
Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the centre of its own self.
With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins.
The dark is patient. The dark is silent. And when the silence has fallen, the dark always wins.
The Wrath of Rassilon
Rassilon stood tall - a dark colossus bestriding the galaxy - upon the edge of the dark crack in the sky, in his mighty flagship.
The sole being on the bridge who was not strapped into a chair stalked from one side to the other, floor-length rich red robes draped over his angular shoulders. He ignored the jolts of impact and was unaffected by the swirl of unpredictable gravity as he paced the deck with heavy metal clanks; he walked with the Presidential staff grasped firmly in his ethereal metal gauntlet.
His expression could not be read—his face was a mask of mystery—but the pure venom in his voice made up for it.
"And what are men but chariots of wrath, by demons driven," he declared as he watched the destruction his forces had made. Laying waste to such a pitiful city of uncultured apes. "This- This is a fitting punishment."
His majestic gaze that flickered bright like lightning stared down upon it from the observation bridge. He could not comprehend the Doctor's love for such a world.
And then he looked above, into the far off distance no mere human eye could see. The clouds were torn and drifting, and the closest stars peeped out; glimmering yellow in the storm-wreck. What could the Doctor see in Earth that the Universe could not provide? What could the Earth give that the Universe did not already have? What did the Earth have that Mother Gallifrey did not?
He pondered in disquiet.
They said the inhabitants of Earth were fierce folk when roused. That they would not give way now for dusk nor dawn until all they have come for has been taken or they themselves are slain. That their fates were not written by Destiny's hands but their own.
Foolish tales.
The fate and end of humanity was written when they began trudging upright in their mud hole and soon they dared look upon the heavens and covet it with envious desires. Older, greater civilizations were the rulers, the guardians and the guards, and it is they who have deemed that the rising ape must fall back to the Earth like the fallen angel of myth.
They were the chaos and the darkness. They were the Empire.
Rassilon looked upon the battle, his Emperor's work, and deemed it good.
More than good. It was magnificent. Even the occasional tremor of the deck beneath his boots, as the entire ship shuddered under enemy cannon and missile blasts, felt to him like applause.
Rassilon turned to the cabal of warriors that had just entered the bridge. Leaders of the Empire's dark army, all stood in anticipation for orders to be given to them. To be loose upon the Earth for the true battle to begin. They needed to satisfy their blood lust soon...
"The Emperor has given me his instructions. Find the girl. That is our only objective," snarled Rassilon viciously. "He cares not how it is done. Go down to Earth with all your forces. Turn this planet into dust if need be. But find this child of prophecy!"
London Falling
"Okay, I'm going to go on record right now. I do not like this," said Matt. "I'm not a fan of the sky lighting on fire and opening up and aliens from hell dropping out of it."
The group stood together as they watched the sky seared of blinding strikes. Lasers and missiles smote down upon the city, from great spaceships and cruisers. Ever again their bright bolts of energy tore aside the darkness of the sky.
Whilst the aliens swooped down on them, mankind ran in full pelt, this way and that, turning from fear to fear. The terror that was upon them filled every man, woman and child with utter madness. They reeled and screamed and cast aside all their hopes, dreams and love they had. Forsaking one another, they reverted to animalistic instincts. To survive, they abandoned sense.
But not all men buckled under terror.
The theatre of war was full of the unexpected.
In the sky, Earth's fighter jets roared in. The Royal Air Force battled hard against technology superior than their own but UNIT's too weren't going to let the enemy rule the sky that easily. Not with the Valkyrie and Valiant reaching soon. On the ground, there was combined arms movement of tanks, men and artillery. The Royal Marine Commandos led the line with all hands on deck. From the Thames, a stream of the Navy's finest ships and frigates fired everything they had.
All of them, attempting to stem the enemy but hundreds and hundreds more were pouring in from the crack in the Universe and through the breach. The dark tide flowed out and spread across London and began to decimate the city.
"And I'm definitely not a fan of both things happening at once,"shouted Matt. "I'm not a fan of any part of it."
Feared filled Ivy to the brim as the brazen roars and explosions shook her out of immobility. The destruction caused London to be turned into a cloud of dust, shrapnel and fire. The others still stared, beheld by the peril.
"Alright Time Lords and Lady... Let's have it. What have we got?"
The Master, the Doctor and Jenny looked struck. The Doctor especially did not seem at all himself. His ancient warm eyes looked vacant and cold.
Quickly however, snapping to as a laser bolt shattered a window pane of an old Land Rover, the Master took charge. His eyes in contrast were lit bright with tempered fury.
"This dimension is cracked and torn," said the Master calmly, though poisonous anger was bubbling in his voice. "It was weakened before, but now it's torn!"
"Where exactly did the crack come from?" asked Ivy, urging on movement and action. She didn't think it was a wise idea to simply be overawed in the middle of the street as the city collapsed around them. "And where is it cracked to?"
The others recognised her intention and no longer halted. Life sparked in all their mad eyes.
"Do you recognise those ships?" he asked the Doctor.
"Sontarans. Cybermen. Judoon. Autons. Krillitane. Zygons. Sycorax. Draconians. Terileptils...The whole lot," he said calmly.
"No Daleks," said the Master surprised.
That was not a question. Merely an observation.
"Can I go punch one before we start getting killed?" asked Jenny as the building closest to them was struck by wailing and screaming cannon fire. The Doctor immediately upon reflex and warfare's experience, rushed them safely and swiftly aside, heads down low to the ground, to the street corner, as chunks of roof, glass and wall rained down and trembled the earth beneath them.
"What do we do now?" coughed Ivy urgently, as she looked to the Doctor, the dust settling upon them.
"We've gotta run," growled the Master without any need for thought as more cannon fire whistled overhead and another building on the street crumbled and crashed in smoke and dust.
The Doctor kept his calm and looked at the ruin around him and nodded his agreement.
The others did not need to ask any further.
"Let's go!" he said, and they did. The Doctor took charge and they ran together behind him like fire, leaping over rubble and the bonnets of blazing cars; except for the Master who stood jumping and waving his arms about in disbelief.
"I meant away!"he cried incredulous, before a hail of bright laser bolts showered behind him and he ran screaming at the top of his lungs after them.
"Oh alright then!" he cried against his fate.
Just Like Home
He didn't want this. He didn't choose this. Not again. Never again.
But right now he doesn't have a choice: the world he runs to rescue is a home closer to his hearts than he had ever hoped to have. That's what puts the edge in his voice when he tries to make a joke; that's what flattens his mouth and tightens his lips.
Earth.
It felt like the home he wish still he had. Always welcoming, always caring, always there. She provided him with an unconditional acceptance he never got elsewhere.
As London falls all around him, the dread boils in his blood. The Doctor swore to himself, a promise he had to make. He will not let it turn to ash and cinders. Not like Gallifrey. Not like Skaro. Not again.
Never again.
Fall of Shadows
Through the destruction they sped. On and on he led them, tireless and swift. Ivy and Matt trailed behind, their short legs trying their best to keep up while the Time Lords simply sprang and weaved with unerring ease between upturned blazing trucks and newly formed craters in the ground, though Ivy seemed not to know where they were running to. They definitely didn't seem to be running away.
"What's the plan?" cried Matt, echoing her thoughts. All eyes turned to the Doctor.
"Why's everyone looking at me?" he yelped his voice high and squeaking.
"You're usually the one with the plans!" shouted Ivy under the wail of jet engines. "Sort of!Tell me you have a plan..."
"No, I have a thing," muttered the Doctor unconvincingly. "It's like a plan, but with more …greatness."
"You don't have a clue what to do, do you?" asked Matt.
"Get to the TARDIS and don't get killed?"
"Doing good so far, what then?" urged Matt.
"Stop this whole thing," added the Doctor.
"How?" cried Matt, hands spread high and wide in the air.
"Oh it's all questions with you today isn't it?" exclaimed the Doctor. "Can't a Time Lord just run and make things up as he goes along?"
"Seriously though..." interjected Ivy, her gentle voice was sad and soft. The Doctor could barely bare it.
"We get to the TARDIS, fly up and stop this," repeated the Doctor, though now no hint of playfulness in his voice. He really didn't know what else to do.
"Fly up?" cried the Master. "Are you crazy? Those battle cruisers have probably scanned and found your TARDIS by now."
"Doubt it," said the Doctor. "It's so small. Well... on the outside."
Then, an almighty roar and boom filled the sky, louder than any other. Immediately Ivy's gaze lifted, though she wished soon that it didn't, and saw a sight that made her heart sink to its lowest pits. Even from afar she could still see - the Shadow Proclamation fell. Its large upright ships, like floating skyscrapers were devastated and set afire. Explosions thundered across their hulls.
She saw one that was split in two along its width and shadowy shapes falling from it. Aliens or human, she couldn't make them out. All falling and turning to ash as a hail of laser bolts rained on them. She could not stand it any longer and tore her gaze away when she thought she saw a familiar shape fall from the smoking chaos. A large winged creature, still set in its chains, falling...
Victory by Foot
"Wait," said Jenny as she slowed to a pause. She thought she had heard something, though it seemed strange to her that she should be able to do that when the entire world around her was full of shrieks and destruction. But she swore she heard something strange. Something new. Something perilous.
The company halted, breathless and alert. Backs turned to face the wall, the Doctor looked at her with curiosity and uneasiness as they huddled closer together.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
Jenny didn't answer. Her keen eyes narrowed, staring just several metres ahead. Now she swore she was seeing shapes in the air. She felt a cold dread creeping over her hearts. There was something in the air. It was moving. She could feel it.
Then it happened.
The faint shapes ahead of them seemed to grow. Soon, there could be no doubt as the forms took shape and black edges of several figures were seen undoubtedly standing in the street. Ivy gasped. The others could see it too now.
"Teleports," hissed the Master and the shapes in the air immediately materialised and an army marched upon them. "I guess they're landing now."
The landing was pretty interesting...
The wreck of metal and broken stone was high and smoking. All about the area, the roads and buildings were cracked and splintered into countless jagged shards and heaps. The crash had torn Piccadilly Circus into a ruinous heap that still flamed. Nobody had tried to search the crash for survivors. There wasn't much point. Nobody human could have possibly survived.
But then...
A thundering noise came from beneath the pile of rubble. The flames quivered and the ground trembled. Louder and louder it grew until finally...
BOOM!
A gargantuan man burst from the wreckage, roaring and all, his arm that he had used to ram himself free with, was bruised and stained with some blood. Then Jorge, surprised to find himself finally out of the wreckage, tumbled slightly and fell awkwardly to his knees.
"Bah!" he coughed as he steadied himself again, rubbing his aching bald head. "Gravity is not our friend today."
"Gott im Himmel," cried a German voice thickly, as Seth loped with poise out of the wreckage. "We should do that less often, I think. That was a bad crash."
"Hey, any crash you walk away from is a good crash," snapped John's voice as slowly, one by one, Delta Force emerged from the rubble, slightly raw and bloodied. "Youtry landing half a ship."
"Cut the chat ladies," growled Buck as he cocked his weapon purposefully loudly, bringing them back to the situation at hand, "We've got a job to do remember?"
The others fell silent. Not even a whisper of a footstep could be heard, not even from Jorge as they took an all-round defence position around Buck, as he assessed the situation.
The commander looked around the empty street of destruction, but he did not let his guard down. After all the years, he still inspected every shadow that might hide an enemy. His fingers gripped tight on his rifle. The others called him a work-obsessed emotional shut-in but he was fine with that. It kept him fast, kept him alive for twenty-years in active combat.
He glanced momentarily at a reflection of himself on some broken glass that crunched underfoot. Age lines became more evident and his cropped brown hair was beginning to thin and grey at the sides. Stupid old man…
2nd Battalion 5th Marines. UNIT's Howling Commandos. Now, Delta Force. In his mind, Buck told himself he should have retired as a Marine while he was still as decorated as a Christmas tree. But then he just had to get himself involved in Area 51.
But his thoughts drifted too distant. He snapped back to the task at hand and plotted their location on the holo-map strapped to his wrist.
They crashed too far from where they were supposed to be inserted but it didn't make much difference. Their objective was simple. Get in deep into hostile territory and clear the way for the rest of the infantry to overrun the enemy.
Killing. Thinning out the herd. Simple.
"So where exactly are the baddies we're supposed to kill?" asked Wade as he swung his twin blades in eager anticipation and raw delight.
"Why don't we ask her?" asked Seth pointing a lazy finger as they witnessed a woman screaming and fleeing past them along the street. "Hey, where's the fight at?"
Just as those words came tumbling out his mouth, a roaring rush of enemies chasing the fleeing human flooded into view. A laser bolt screamed through the air and ripped directly through the woman from the back, eyes and mouth wide open and her lifeless body tumbled and rolled right in front of them.
"Oh."
Suddenly the battlefield came to life. More and more enemies teleported into view in bright flashes of blue and white light, firing ear-piercing wails of lasers in their direction. A rising chorus of whirring, buzzing and clicking that thickened came from the mechanical Cybermen who stomped down, weapons trained on them.
"You were saying?" roared Buck as his elite team of fighters scrambled safely behind cover and began firing back. "Take them down!"
"Why can't we ever go anywhere nice?" said John sarcastically as he pulled out his revolvers and made swift deaths for his targets. The Judoons he killed fell with great thuds, all bleeding from between their tiny eyes.
"I hear Hawaii nice this time of month."
Responding tactically, their enemies opened up space between each other, dual cannons erupting gouts of galvened particle beams that blew craters where they landed. Buck signalled the others into better cover and positions as several Cybermen hosed them down with heavy fire.
Then at the precise moment when an opportunity presented itself, on instinct, Delta Force rushed forwards on his command.
Jorge gave immense cover fire as they moved. Buck's penetrating intellect of battle meant he made the shots of the most dangerous enemies. He downed four Cybermen in one swift leaping movement, and with their heavy firepower down, it afforded the others to get up close and pushed back the advancing hostiles.
But the enemies came down on them like a downpour. Not just Cybermen and Judoon. Buck could see a platoon of Sontarans quickly advancing, attempting a flanking movement and now Autons endlessly marching forth, particle pistols in their hands firing straight whilst their plastic bodies were simply taking in the damage.
But Buck grinned mildly and in the shadow that cloaked his face, there were bright twin gleams of his eyes. Here, in the battlefield was where he really came alive. The ease with which he had taken command of the situation was frightening.
He wondered why he even considered retiring. Forty wasn't that old and right now he felt young again.
"Christina, Seth, Wade you take the five hundred on the right."
"There are onlythree hundred and forty nine on the right," replied Seth as-a-matter-of-factly.
"Riiiight," responded Jorge.
"The rest of you, on the left with me," ordered Buck as he rushed forwards into the firestorm looking for death.
Author's Note :
I do apologise for the great delay. I had to go to Taiwan for a month, without internet access which greatly hampered my progress and also because of simply how complex and important some of the events in this chapter are for the future of my story.
This was a very very very big chapter for me to write. In fact, this chapter would have been 15,000 words had it been in its original form. Thus I have had to split it into two - this chapter and the next one so you could have it and not die at the length of it all (that's what she said) -and cut a lot of things in between. (Or at least move that to a later chapter altogether)
Second reason for the difficulty I found in writing these two chapters was because of the new season of Doctor Who that dangerously gravitated towards my own plots and me trying to keep these two things apart.
Contrary to popular belief, fan fiction's greatest asset is the opportunity to be entirely different to the original story in relation to plots and it'd be very lame if I ended up publishing a story that sort of ran the same route as it were.
Last reason, was due to the passing of Elisabeth Sladen.
I'll tell you more in the next chapter's author's notes.
ALSO, WARNING. NEXT CHAPTER IS QUITE LONG. TAKE A BREAK FIRST.