Author's Note: Fair warning, these next few chapters may be rather graphic.
The Doctor led the way into the warehouse, squinting in the dim light that was just barely filtering through the filthy windows high up on the wall. He raised the torch he was carrying and clicked the light on, while toggling the sonic in his hand, not wanting to lose even one moment of readings when they found themselves in a long narrow hallway.
Five additional torch beams cut through the gloom of the hall and quickly illuminated either end of the small space, showing four doors set at regular intervals along the wall.
Jack moved right up next to the Doctor, his eyes scanning the gloom while his ears strained to hear any movement coming at them from behind one of those closed doors. "Ianto, what is the layout of this warehouse?"
There was a moment of silence while the group got their bearings, Donna, the Doctor and Jack taking point while Gwen, Andy and Daniel walked slowly behind them so that all angles of approach were properly covered.
They had taken the Doctor's words about these creatures to heart and so were not taking any chances. They had settled into instinctive positions ready to move out in a loose formation so that their backs were always covered and eyes were always pointed outwards. Each was equipped with a spare torch for extra light should they need it, just in case the creatures started to wreak too much havoc with the electrical systems.
A slight crackle before the comms came to life. "There are three offices in the main hallway, Jack. The fourth door will lead into the warehouse space proper. Once in there, you will enter a large storage space of approximately 75,000 square feet. Towards the back of the space there are 2 stories of offices built into the back of the building with access to the sub level, but Jack there's something more I found in the old plans."
The Doctor turned sharply at those words, jaw clenching because it could never be quite so simple as just walking into a warehouse and finding the angels all lined up waiting for him. He snorted softly at that thought, as if anything to do with the angels would ever be simple. "Spit it out, Ianto. What am I facing?" The Doctor's words were low, but the menace in his voice was enough to cause goosebumps to erupt over nearly everyone's skin. The three newcomers were seeing a side to this unassuming alien that was frankly terrifying and made each of them silently thank whatever deity was still out there that he was on their side.
The silence continued for an eternity before Ianto continued. "I found evidence of old tunnels behind the walls of the sub levels, Doctor. Maybe from when Cardiff was first colonized, as there was heavy coal mining in the surrounding countryside. No ore deposits of value were ever discovered in Cardiff proper but that didn't mean that prospectors didn't try digging just to make sure."
The Doctor's eyes slid closed, his breath sighing through parted lips before he blurted out. "Of COURSE! That explains why they chose this location, the tunnels would be perfect for them to hide during the day or when people were about and they were not ready to hunt. I just wish I knew where they actually came to the city, or if the rift just happened to drop them into the perfect spot."
Gwen shook her head at the Doctor's words, her head spinning as she heard flutters in the darkness. She gasped and suddenly swung her torch from end to either end of the hallway, positive there was something in the shadows watching them.
The Doctor reached out to her, trusting Jack and Donna to guard the approach from the front when he saw Gwen starting to panic. His hands gripped her shoulders, eyes trying to focus on her wild ones in an effort to calm her down. "Gwen Cooper, listen to me! It's the Doctor. You need to breathe, panicking is not going to help any of us right now."
"I hear them Doctor. I swear, they're watching and just waiting to pick us off one by one!"
He jerked at that, and felt the heavy weight of Donna's suddenly considering eyes boring into his back. He glanced back at her, seeing in her eyes the knowledge that he had already ascertained. "It's just the fear setting in, Gwen. They know we are here yes, but they are still trying to figure out what we are going to do. You are reacting to the time distortions in the air around us, they are disrupting your equilibrium and causing panic to set in. Just breathe deeply and listen to the sound of my voice." Her wild eyes were glued to his face, her heart felt like it was going to pound out of her chest any moment but she found she couldn't disobey him. Almost against her will she found herself taking long calming breaths just as he had instructed, the warmth of his approval giving her the strength to get a stranglehold on the strange panic that had suddenly risen within her.
"I'm sorry Doctor that was not like me at all. I've got this, you can count on me."
His answering smile was brilliant, his hands squeezing her shoulders tightly before he straightened up again. "There you go! Now, let's go look at some offices."
Andy and Daniel leaned close to double check that she was all right, the both of them shaken to see the normally calm Gwen fighting against a very real panic attack. Each of them silently wondered if they would not be the next ones undone by these temporal disturbances that the Doctor spoke about.
When the Doctor returned to the point position, he felt more than saw Donna's frown. She was glaring daggers at him causing him to pause and throw a confused look back in her direction. What did I do now?
You know that wasn't because of the time distortions, she has been affected on a genetic level by her family being so close to the rift for so many centuries hasn't she?
The Doctor sighed at that comment, having known that she would have felt that thought flash through his mind before he had even realized it. He just muttered softly before he threw the first office door open and three of them shined their lights into the cramped quarters before moving on to the next one.
What did you expect me to tell her? Especially in front of her friends? I'm sorry but you're feeling the temporal displacement because your DNA has been genetically mutated due to centuries of contact with an untempered rift of time energy? Oh yeah, that would've gone a million miles towards calming her down. He wasn't really surprised that Donna was angry at him for not telling Gwen the truth, and he would eventually if they ever managed to get out of this situation alive, but this had not been the time to do so.
There was a soft brush of fingers against his thoughts before he felt the whispered sigh. I'm sorry, Doctor. I wasn't thinking.
He responded in the only way he could at that moment, by sending a brush of warmth through their bond. Donna was still off balance herself and so hadn't been thinking straight, as always her natural empathy had risen to the fore and she had only wanted to help Gwen understand what all this meant especially since she had been through so much traumatic change herself so recently. But the Doctor was right, this was not the time or place.
Donna growled softly at herself as they finished searching the last two offices, mentally berating herself for not being stronger and for letting herself be so easily overwhelmed by everything that was going on around them. She hated once more feeling like a burden, and determined to shore up her defenses even more.
The final office searched, the team made their way to the last door; pausing before the old particle board while the Doctor ran his sonic along the seams of the opening making sure there was nothing directly beyond it before he threw the door open and all six of them stormed into the yawning warehouse space beyond.
Ianto sat looking at the monitors that he had managed to patch into, his every muscle tense as he listened to the comm chatter both from the team on the inside and from Cardiff PD.
There had been an increase in ghost activity directly around the wharf, everything from more soldiers to a complete gala ball dancing from the wharves out across the waters of the bay. Ianto tried to keep Jack informed of all the goings on outside the warehouse without distracting him too much from what he was facing within, he knew that the six people in the warehouse were in the most immediate danger.
However, he felt that Jack needed to know the tense situation that was beginning to develop among the men and women that had been left behind. They had already been shaken by the appearance of an alien in their midst who told them that their planet's very existence was in danger and now they were seeing the walls of their reality melting away in front of them.
He knew that they were all well trained officers, but they had never been trained to handle this sort of strain and some of them were fast approaching the breaking point.
He continually monitored the rift though it was no longer surging but was now just one long continuous pulse of power that only seemed to ebb and flow like some great tide. He had never seen anything like it and as far as he could tell, Torchwood didn't have any record of activity on this kind of prolonged scale not at least that hadn't resulted in the rift tearing itself completely open again.
He glanced back to the blue police box standing on the grating not too far behind him, wondering if the Doctor's strange ship was helping to hold the fabric of reality together by its very presence.
Ianto had managed to boost the power in the affected warehouses and sealed the circuits as best he could, though he was still working out a proper deadlock. It would help the team the further they got into the warehouses, but it was the tunnels he was worried about more now. The lighting there was feeble as far as he could tell, and on a completely different circuit that he had no ability to tap into. If they had to go in there, then they were on their own.
A flicker of movement on the monitors below the hauntingly beautiful feed from the Tardis caught his attention. He spun his chair around to better focus on the grainy feed, trying to make out shapes in the murky light of the first sub-basement right where the schematics said the tunnels joined the structure.
He smiled softly as he spotted what looked like an angel's wing at the edge of the screen. "Gotcha."
"Jack, I've got contact. There is at least one angel in the first sub-basement right below you. I've got a visual on it right now."
Jack smiled at that, feeling a surge of adrenaline as he now knew that they were not on some wild goose chase. "Excellent, Ianto. Keep an eye on it and let me know if it looks like its heading towards the stairs."
"Affirmative." Came the thready reply.
The Doctor was frowning thoughtfully as they slowly made their way through the stacks of pallets that had been right on the other side of the door that they had burst into, the windows high in the structure brightening with each passing moment as the sun rose higher and higher into the sky. He doubted that the angels would try to come up to this level, at least not with the sun high.
Then why were they allowing themselves to be seen? They were devious enough to know they were being watched, why let their prey know where they were?
The group rounded the last stack of pallets and stopped when light stabbed into their eyes, each of them throwing their arms over their eyes to allow them to adapt without blinking too often.
The Doctor's vision cleared the fastest and what he saw set his hearts to pounding. He didn't even realize he was running across the floor of the warehouse until he was skidding on his knees to a halt next to the line of five corpses, laid out in perfect, gruesome display on the warehouse floor.
"No! By the vortex, no no no no!" He had dropped his torch and already checked each body for a pulse though the way their heads had been twisted grotesquely from their bodies told him that they were all dead.
The others came running up behind him, their cries of shock and horror falling on already tortured nerves like searing drops of accusation. Though he hadn't known any of these people, he felt responsible for each and every one of their deaths. Especially when he saw that one of the bodies was a human child, no more than ten or eleven years old.
He couldn't stop the screaming surge of grief when he saw that body, for a brief moment remembering the faces of his children the last time he had seen them before the war had broken out. Some had been full grown when he had ended the time war with children of their own, grandchildren that he had never known because he had gone out to fight but there had been two that would have just been about as old as this child when the Doctor had made that final fateful decision to end it all.
Would he ever stop being responsible for the deaths of children? Their blood seemed to sear through him the most, the blood of the innocent the most damning of all.
The angels didn't care who they killed, and usually the more fear that was involved the better they liked the hunt. These poor souls, probably had no idea what was hunting them and never even got to see the face of their killers. Or if they did, they most likely thought that they were hallucinating right before the life was ripped from their bodies.
It was however the first body in the line that had Andy reaching for his comm and frantically shouting. "Bob? Where are you?" His eyes were slightly wild as he saw one of the two missing officers laying in that line, body on perfect display as if he were sleeping even though his head had been nearly ripped off his body.
Already Andy was hearing the reactions of Michael's family, his parents and his girlfriend Melissa that he had been so keen to marry in just a few short months. How would he ever explain to them how Michael had died? How could he explain that there was no bad guy to bring to justice? That it was all a crazy universe and they were all just living in it, and now they knew that they truly were not alone?
He felt the surge of hope though that at least one of his men was still alive, because there was no sign of Bob's body. Bob Richardson was still unaccounted for, and that meant that Andy wasn't going to give up.
"Constable Richardson, can you hear me? What is your present location?"
There was nothing but radio silence in response to his query, though he refused to give up hope.
The Doctor was carefully scanning each body with the sonic, face set in grim lines when he discovered the exact same rashes covered each corpse in a similar pattern to the bodies in the morgue.
He had no clue who the other four bodies were, though they were all in various stages of disarray. Possibly a family of homeless people who had gone into the warehouse to take shelter from the chill of the night.
He was screaming inside, mind whited out with searing hot rage at once again having been too slow. Once again, the blood of innocents was on his hands and there had been nothing he could have done to have stopped it.
Donna's hand on his shoulder pulled him out of himself, she took several precious seconds to stop surveying the warehouse to draw the Doctor's gaze to her own. "Hey, Spaceman. You couldn't have prevented this. This was NOT your fault Doctor, so don't you dare go shouldering the blame for this as well."
He was shaking his head already at that. "This is a warning, Donna. A warning directly to me that they know I'm here and that they are ready and waiting. This is all my fault."
Gwen and Daniel glanced back at the Doctor, the hollow echo in his words causing each of them to want to weep in despair at the rage that seemed to be seething off him. "Doctor? Did you bring these creatures here?"
The Doctor reared up at Daniel's question, his angry despair turning into righteous indignation. "How could you even insinuate that I would do such a thing? I'm here to help you and try to save this planet again from almost certain destruction."
Daniel simply smiled while he kept his gaze trained on the walls of the warehouse. "Then this is not your fault. Whatever these things are, they want us off balanced. Makes us easier prey, don't you think?"
The Doctor was brought up short by that simple observation, the simple words of a human once more bringing order to the chaos that was his life. He shook his head, almost as if he could shake all the rage and pain and guilt away by that simple gesture. "That is brilliant, Daniel! They want us unsettled because it makes the hunt more exciting. But no! We're one step ahead of them. We're going to choke them!"
Donna couldn't hide the smile at his words, her eyes meeting Jack's for a split second at the renewed sense of purpose that seemed to surge through them all.
Daniel smiled and nodded in reply to the Doctor, never once stopping his constant vigil. He had been in war before, been to Kosovo and Afghanistan where everyone was suspect and men started to even fear their own comrades. He had even been one of those men at one time, but it had taken a man of stronger will than his own to drag him out of the pits of paranoia and give his life new meaning.
He had been given a second chance with Cardiff PD, and had become something of a mentor to many of the young officers who were so filled with the idealism at being a part of the fight to uphold justice and the law. He was there to support them when those fragile and precious ideals were shattered by reality's harsh truth and he had so often helped them rebuild from the pieces, much as he had been forced to on more than one occasion.
He saw something of himself in this alien, though on a scale far beyond anything he could ever comprehend, and he hoped that in his own small way he could help this fascinating, amazing and yes very dark man save them all.
Gwen Cooper nudged him softly with her shoulder, the smile evident on her lips as she murmured. "Still trying to be everyone's favorite uncle, I see?"
He just shook his head and laughed out loud, for some reason feeling that the outburst of sound was a defiant shout to the creatures that were even now hunting them. He wanted to yell and scream and shout that humanity would not pass quietly from this galaxy, that though the angels would pick at them and terrorize them they would in the end rise above.
"Just doing my part, Gwen. That man I fear is truly our only hope."
Andy's voice continued to echo softly in the warehouse as he continued to try to raise Bob on the comm, not giving up hope that the young constable was still alive.
With a final somber look at the bodies laid out on the floor of the warehouse, the group gathered its courage and moved towards the line of offices that concealed the entrance to the level below.
Ianto Jones was fascinated intermittently by the characters scrolling across the Tardis' screen and the movements of the angel on the screen beneath it.
There so far was only one angel that he could see, and he was unnerved every time he glanced down at that screen.
It was almost like watching something in stop motion. The wing had eventually turned into the upper portion of a torso, which was then followed by a head and the rest of the creature. It never moved when he was watching, but as soon as he would look away and back it was in a different position. Almost like it knew he was watching it.
How was that possible? This was just a video feed. It wasn't like there were monitors in the building alerting those within that they were being monitored, that would defeat the whole purpose of CCTV.
Something was bothering him though he couldn't quite place a finger on. The feed from the Tardis had begun to take on the ebb and flow of the energy that was now streaming in a constant rush out of the rift, he was concerned that the ghosts would now start to manifest in Torchwood itself and he worried because he truly could not afford the distraction.
Donna and the Doctor had been right when they had said that the power was coming from the hub, now that the flow was almost constant it was easy to track the source even though the focal point was so far away.
He wished that the Doctor had at least left a way to open the Tardis should they need it, though he wasn't sure what he could do without the Doctor there to guide him. The thought that he could hide inside the ship flickered briefly through his mind before he ruthlessly quashed it down.
He had stood face to face with a Dalek that had been a party to the theft of his planet and a plan to destroy all of existence across every conceivable reality, he had faced demons from the pits of hell. He was made of sterner stuff than that.
His gaze travelled back to the monitor with the angel, noting that it hadn't moved since the last time he had looked. It was frozen, half turned away from him with its hands raised nearly to its face as if it were just lowering them.
"What are you up to? And where are your friends?"
He kept his gaze trained on the angel while he listened to the comm chatter from the team, knew that they were on the move and heading towards the entrance to the basement. He carefully flicked through every camera feed, trying to scout ahead of them to see if anything was lying in wait.
"Jack, Doctor, the coast looks clear during your main descent and the first three rooms appear to be empty. But be careful the angel is in what looks like the fourth or fifth room, it's hard to pinpoint its exact location."
"Copy that, Ianto. Keep us apprised if anything changes."
Ianto was momentarily distracted by a flurry of movement on the other monitors as it seemed some of the Cardiff PD were panicking because a veritable flood of ghosts had manifested around them. He gaped as what looked like a full scale battle with soldiers in armor that he didn't recognize surged all around them, weapons flashing in deadly beauty before sliding harmlessly through officers into their opponents on the other side.
He watched and heard officers shrieking in anticipation of the agony and death that should have come from those thrusts, before they looked down in disbelief that they had not been disemboweled.
It was madness and complete chaos over there, and the police force was flying apart at the seams as the officers were completely overcome by abject terror. Ianto tapped directly into their feed, trying to be the voice of reason in the raging storm of insanity around them but could only weep as he heard the screams of men and women positive that they were seeing the end of days.
He was completely oblivious to the movement on the screen behind him, the face of the angel had turned towards the camera and in the blink of an eye filled the screen from edge to edge almost as if it was peering through the lens and into the heart of Torchwood itself.
The Doctor led the way into the hallway in the back of the building, shining his torch down to either end while the rest of the group came up behind him. They paused to get their bearings, torches shining bright enough to banish any shadow even though the overhead lights were burning brightly. They didn't want to risk being plunged into darkness without any warning, so they kept them out and lit for the time being.
There was a flight of stairs leading up at one end, and a flight leading down at the other and both were filled with light.
"Which way, Doctor? Do you want to search the upper levels first?" Jack asked, feeling the itch between his shoulder blades now that he knew they were getting close. The bodies had set them all on edge and made them more cautious, but he knew that they had to pick up the pace as they were burning daylight and the Doctor had been adamant that he wanted as much light as possible. If they searched every room in each warehouse it would take days and they would be plagued by exhaustion to boot.
The Doctor cocked his head like he was listening to something, the quiet whirring of his sonic the only sound until Donna pointed towards the flight leading down. "The energy is focused beneath us, Doctor. That is where I think we should go."
The Doctor looked to her, his eyes drinking her in for a brief moment while inside his hearts were stuttering at the thought of what they were facing. She stood with her head held high though it was splitting with a maddening migraine at the constant shriek of energy across already tortured senses, she battled through it all and stood resolute beside him immersing herself in the sensations to better help guide them all. He was once more in awe of her, this amazing human woman who had now become so much more. She had held the knowledge of universes within her, and rather than diminish her when he had been forced to remove it, it had only served to spur her on to greater things all on her own. She was not a pale reflection of him as she had sometimes feared, but a vibrant, beautiful and incredible being in her own right. She was going through a trial by fire right now, and shining in that amazing way that only she ever could.
"All right everybody, remember the rules! Don't blink and stay together no matter what happens!"
There was a squeal of static over all their comms, before a flat emotionless voice echoed over the channel. "Are you there, Sir? This is Bob, Sir. Are you there?"
They all jumped at the sound of the young officer's voice, but it was Andy who nearly dropped his walkie in his rush to reply. "We're here, Bob! Where are you?"
Something was wrong, something was very very wrong. The Doctor leaned closer to Andy while he was talking to Bob, his mind racing while he thought over everything he knew about the angels and how they never ever let anyone get away completely unscathed. He looked to Gwen who was grinning like a loon and even Jack and Daniel were smiling happily at the thought that someone at least had managed to get out alive.
"Where are you in the warehouse? Your orders were to only scout the perimeter, why did you go into the warehouse?"
"I didn't have a choice, Sir. I had to do it."
The Doctor could take no more. "Bob. Constable Richardson is it?"
"Yes, Sir."
"You say you are in the warehouse now, where exactly are you?"
There was brief radio silence at that question, Andy glared at the Doctor as soon as he had taken over the comm but he subsided when it seemed that the Doctor was trying to zero in on Bob's location so that hopefully they could get to him in time to help.
"I'm down below you, Sir."
"But the angels are down there, Bob. How did you get down there while your partner ended up dead on the floor up here?" He knew he was being blunt in describing his partner's death, but his stomach was already sinking because he was afraid he knew the answer.
"I didn't get down here, Sir. The Angels are down here."
"Yes, that's what I said. How are you down there as well?"
"I'm not, Sir. The angel is Sir."
"Are you saying that you are…"
"The angel, Sir. The one your man is monitoring."
Donna's eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth at the implication of those words, Jack reached out to her and hugged her close his own jaw clenched tightly shut to stop his own scream.
Andy and Daniel both were shaking their heads, positive they had misheard Bob or that he was delirious from some injury he had received. "What does he mean, he's the angel? He's delusional or…"
The Doctor rounded on Andy, all traces of worry, regret or sorrow stripped away and the absolute blazing power of a Time Lord in all of his rage stared back through the Doctor's eyes. Andy spluttered, feeling his mind blasted clean beneath the power of that gaze while once more he saw the turning of the universe within their depths.
Daniel merely grunted at the intensity of that gaze, though he wasn't the focus of it he couldn't help but feel humbled and a little terrified by the seething knowledge that burned in those suddenly cold and ancient eyes. "Because that's what angels do, Andy. They are merciless, ruthless and thrive on pain and suffering. THAT is why I have to stop them."
The Doctor palmed the talk button on his walkie once more. "If you're the angel how can you be talking to me?"
"The angels have no voice, Sir. But then you already know that don't you? You and your kind have encountered us before. It needed a voice and stripped my mind from my body and reanimated a version of my consciousness to communicate with you."
The five humans staggered at that, each horrified beyond words at what they had just heard. The Doctor however only grimly nodded as that long buried ability that had not been seen in ten thousand years was suddenly manifested once more in the angels on earth. This was bad. This was very, very bad.
"Why earth though? And why now? It doesn't make sense that you've taken as long as you have to build up this much energy."
"We fell through a crack between universes Doctor and we were weak and starving. There is so much power here though and so much food. We could afford to take our time to rebuild ourselves before bringing the others through."
Devious though the angels were, they were not used to communicating verbally with any species. They were beings of telepathic communication only, so if one angel experienced something they all did. Which explains how even angels from another universe had knowledge of their encounters with him and others of his kind, but their knowledge was incomplete which would explain the uncharacteristic sloppiness when they had sensed his presence approaching.
"So this is a rescue operation then?"
"Exactly, Sir. And when the time comes, the rift will be able to feed us forever."
"So then not only is the planet at stake, but the entire universe as well then." He replied grimly. "Thank you, Bob. That's all I needed to know."
And with that he closed the comm before nodding to each of them to do the same.
Andy and Daniel were both stunned by what they had just heard, their minds were very quickly shutting down any emotion right now lest they become completely incapacitated but both couldn't hide their horror. Daniel was the first to find his voice. "That… that THING stole Bob's mind? Just so it could have a voice? Where's his body? How are we going to fight this Doctor?"
The Doctor focused on both Andy and Daniel as he could tell they were the ones having the hardest time adjusting to their world suddenly gone mad. Gwen was an old hat at dealing with extraterrestrials and though her eyes were red rimmed from the tears she was fighting down, she was standing at alert making sure to guard their backs while the Doctor dealt with the blows as they came.
"Daniel, I warned you about these creatures. I hadn't expected to be able to talk to them as they hadn't done that in thousands of years, so this is a boon to us. Think of it as Bob reaching out to try to help us all survive. His final sacrifice to save the earth!"
He could tell his words had a calming effect on Andy and Daniel, their thoughts shifting away from the horror that was struggling to consume them and on to the hope that they could maybe help Bob find peace by destroying his killers. They both nodded to the Doctor, bodies filled with renewed energy as they lifted their torches towards the flight of stairs leading down.
"All right then, we know that they're down there and that they know that we are coming so be prepared for anything and if I tell you to run, don't stop to think just RUN!"
Donna was quivering with the desire to blink against the seething black maelstrom of energy that was lapping at the bottom of the stairs, the lines of force that she hadn't been able to detect in the warehouse were pouring from all sides of the walls around her now, focusing down below.
"Doctor, can you feel it?"
Her jaw set in grim determination now that they were getting close to the focal point. She still didn't know what he was going to do, but she could feel edges of his plan flickering through his mind.
"Yeah, we're getting close."
With those grim words, they stepped off the final step and paused to get their bearings. The lights were flickering in the first room, it was a cavernous room that stretched nearly the entire length of the warehouse above and just as Ianto had noted it was covered in gritty gray dust. The wall to the left was broken by a series of arches at regular intervals, and there was a fitful golden light flickering through some of them.
The Doctor swung his sonic towards the arches, thumb twirling the dial to adjust the settings before focusing the beam once more. The focal point was definitely down here, but there was something else. It was almost as if he could taste the intrusion of that other universe, just there at the edge of his senses through the throbbing pulse of power. Whatever the angels were doing, it was nearly complete.
The Doctor kneeled to the ground, sliding his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose so he could better see in the dim light. He pinched the dust between his fingers, quickly wiping his hands against his coat when he felt the same oily texture to the dust that he had felt in the hub.
One glance at Donna, Jack and Gwen was all he needed to tell them that indeed the room was filled with the dust from the remains of weevils. Dozens, hundreds maybe there was no way to tell but it was obvious they were walking through a charnel house.
The Doctor rose back to his feet, slipping his glasses back in his pocket before raising the sonic and his torch once again. "This area or one of the other ones like it is the focal point of activity, unfortunately that is where the angels will be as well." He sighed softly before leading the way deeper into the dim room. "I'm so sorry that you were all dragged into this, but you all are brilliant! I couldn't do this without each and every one of your help."
His words bolstered their spirits as they continued through the large room, torches jumping at every sound to see if there was something in the shadows. They all heard the sound of childlike giggling from time to time, echoing from the shadows before fading away, though to Donna's eyes it felt more like the giggling was coming from the lines of black energy she saw swirling in an undulating mass through the entire area.
There were flickers of movement in the archways, dim flashes that vanished when one of them would shine their light towards the source. The angels were on the scent now and were hunting them just as surely as they themselves were being hunted, but why weren't they attacking yet?
The angel's words at least made the Doctor think that the numbers were still few, but that they were powerful now and ready to bring an army through the rift that they were creating. He continuously scanned the rift, trying to figure out just where they were trying to connect to and see if he could figure out the exact spatial and temporal variance. If he could feed that to the Tardis, then he might actually get lucky after all.
Gaze searching, always moving and never blinking with both eyes he knew that his luck never ran that way and that already too many had died for his second chance. His gaze flicked to Donna and for once, he found he couldn't be sorry for something over which he had no control not when he had finally be able to find that for which he had been searching for so long.
There was a rush of sound in the dim recesses of the large room and just as they all swung towards it, Donna gasped and threw herself back against the Doctor with a scream lodged in her throat because a stone hand had suddenly reached out of nothing towards her, stopping mere inches from her face.
The Doctor spun around, grabbing her by the arm and nearly throwing her back against Jack when he turned to face the angel that had rushed out of the shadows in the split second that they had looked away.
"Everybody MOVE! Run!" The lights overhead began to flicker, the angel moving in the flashes between before another angel appeared out of the darkness behind it.
The team turned and ran, though the Doctor kept his gaze trained behind him to try to limit the movements of the angels through the flickering of the lights.
Three other angels had joined the first two, their arms outstretched and their faces calm and placid though the first one that had attacked still had its fangs bared in a rictus snarl.
The Doctor ducked through the archway, his torch shining back through the opening just as the comm flared to life once more.
"You can't run from us, Doctor. We're done restoring and are nearly ready to bring the rest through the rift, you can hear them on the other side waiting for the feast that they know is here."
Gwen, Andy and Daniel looked further into this new space, gasping softly at the line of golden energy that pulsed and throbbed through the archway leading into the next space. It undulated through the air like a sinuous golden snake, fading in and out of sight at irregular intervals but the laughter was definitely getting louder.
To Donna's eyes the ribbon was like looking straight into the heart of time itself, she could see glimmers of different realities through the haze of temporal energy, flashes out of time before they would close off once again. She bit her lip, trying to still the pain in her skull that was throbbing in time to the surging energy around her. This is what all that energy was focused on, the gateway was nearly built and the rift was nearing its breaking point.
"Angel Bob, Why bring them here? Why not just feed on the rift energy on the other side?"
"Because the energy only bleeds on this side, Doctor and besides there's no food left in that world for us. Here, there is plenty and we will once more be free to hunt across the universe."
Donna was shivering as she listened to the angel's words, her mind inexplicably filled with visions of dead planets spinning endlessly through space, of whole worlds stripped of any and all life while the angels rampaged unchecked through the cosmos. It was enough to terrify all of them, and suddenly Donna knew without a doubt that no sacrifice was too great to stop that grim reality from happening.
"I will stop you, Angel Bob." He stood facing the angels through the archway, body taut with a resolute purpose that was truly terrible to behold. "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I am the Oncoming Storm and the Bringer of Darkness." With each word, the power within the Doctor seemed to swell, until it felt like a blazing sun was suddenly in their midst. Donna couldn't help the whoop of sheer delight when she saw the veil of sorrow melt away from him now that he knew just what truly was at stake, he was the Doctor and they would not defeat him. Jack's face was split with a huge grin, his hand curled into a fist that he pumped in fierce acknowledgement of the Doctor's words. Gwen, Andy and Daniel merely stood in mute awe, suddenly realizing that the man before them was the earth's great protector and that they were all privileged to have been able to stand at his side during this terrible time. "I have been responsible for this planet and this universe for nearly a thousand years, and you will not WIN."
"We already are, Doctor. You just don't know it yet."
And with that, the lights went out.