Title: Armageddon

Rating: T

Warnings: Major spoilers for "Utopia", "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords"; violence; mild language

A/N: Thanks so much to the reviewers! You guys are amazing and make me smile! And I am thrilled to *finally* be able to present you with the first chapter of The Year of Hell! I will warn you that this is going to get a bit dark in some places seeing as it's Armageddon and all that, plus we're dealing with the Master as ruler of the Earth. Fun to write, not so fun to experience, I'm guessing.

Here's a quick reminder of all the characters who will most likely be making appearances just so you remember:

Criminal Minds: Hotch, Gideon, JJ, Prentiss, Garcia, Morgan, Reid. Possibly Rossi, Strauss, Elle, Diana.

Torchwood: Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Ianto.

Sherlock: Sherlock, John, Mycroft, Molly, Lestrade. Possibly Mrs. Hudson, Moriarty, Sarah, Harry Watson.

NCIS: Abby, Tony, Gibbs, McGee, Ducky, Ziva. Possibly Jenny.

Supernatural: Sam, Dean, Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Ash. Possibly Ava, Jake, John (flashbacks), Mary (flashbacks), Meg.

The Mentalist: Jane, Lisbon, Cho, Rigsby. Possibly Van Pelt, Hightower, Minelli, Brett Styles.

And also remember that this takes place in 2007 (which is the unfortunate reason I cannot include Castiel, Lilith, Ruby or Lucifer). I've decided season 2 for Criminal Minds and Supernatural, obviously between seasons 1 and 2 for Torchwood, season 3 for NCIS and pre-series for Sherlock and The Mentalist.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the chapter! Please let me know what you think!

Don't forget to review!

Armageddon:

Part III: The Year of Hell

Chapter One

As the song came to an end, Reid could hear the panicked and terrified voices screaming over the radio, begging for help as the Toclafane massacred them. Millions of innocent people being torn to shreds by those things and there was nothing he could do about it.

The Master seemed practically giddy with his excitement, eyes dancing as he watched the carnage below.

"Take them to the cells," he waved dismissively at the guards who were holding Reid, Jack and the Jones family. The guards hesitated for a moment, not sure what to do. After all, they'd just watched Saxon murder the president and bring forth an army of deadly aliens. He certainly wasn't the man they'd assumed to be working for. But with a raised brow and a sharp look, the men quickly herded them out of the Valiant's conference room and into the prison cells below.

"The Doctor and I have a bit of catching up to do," The Master continued, smiling gleefully at his other prisoner and motioning for two men to come forward and grab him. They did so reluctantly, eyeing Saxon with fear and trepidation as they hedged toward the Doctor and pulled his arms behind his back.

The Doctor could barely stand on his own anyhow. The blast from the Master's laser screwdriver hadn't been lethal, as it had been with Jack, but it was certainly enough to take him out of commission for a couple of hours at least.

"Now then, Doctor," the Master grinned, as if he absolutely loved saying the Doctor's name, "Let's have a little chat. There's so much you've just got to tell me!"

Reid craned his neck, trying to watch as the guards dragged the Doctor away, the Master leading them to another area of the ship, but the guards just shoved him forward a bit harder, clearly worried about being on Saxon's bad side.

They were thrown into a small cell, hardly enough room for all of them to fit and certainly not enough seating space. There was one lone bench, large enough for maybe three people, and nothing else. Not a window, a sink, a toilet. Nothing but dark grey walls and iron bars.

"Damn it!" Jack swore, slamming his hand against the bars as the guards quickly vanished down the labyrinth of halls once more, leaving them alone.

Reid moved to stand next to Jack while Mr. and Mrs. Jones sat next to Tish, Francine wrapping her arms around her daughter's shoulders, the two of them rocking back and forth slowly.

"This isn't right," Reid whispered, his voice hollow as he stared forward, not looking at Jack at all.

"Of course it's not right, Spencer! That psychopath just took control of the whole world!"

Reid shook his head slowly, "No, that's not what I meant…" he said, "I… I mean, this, all of it, is wrong. This isn't how it happens."

Jack froze, blinked once and slowly turned to look at Reid. Reid could feel his eyes burning into the side of his skull but he still didn't look at Jack. He felt knots tying up in his stomach. Was it something he'd done? Something he'd said? Or hadn't said? Maybe he should have warned the Doctor about the Toclafane and the president's assassination.

"…What do you mean? You've been here before?"

Reid hesitated to answer, not sure how to explain it. "Yes and no," he said, "I'm from near the end of 2011 and this happened in 2007. This all happened to me in my past, but back then, I remember hearing about it on the news. We stayed at the office late to watch Air Force One landing in London and the next day, President Winters was killed on live television by the Toclafane."

"You knew this was going to happen?" For just a second, Jack sounded truly outraged and Reid felt guilt wash over him. "Why didn't you say something? Warn us! We might have been able to change it!"

"No, you don't understand, Jack," Reid shook his head, "Winters was killed at 8:02 that morning, London time. Almost immediately after that, Harold Saxon disappeared, people said he snapped and no one's seen him since. There was no Toclafane attack, the Master never took control. This isn't what happened; it should be over by now."

Jack's brows furrowed together as he leaned against the cell bars, "So maybe something altered the timeline. Maybe you being here changed things,"

"It's possible," Reid conceded, "But I was careful. I hardly told the Doctor anything at all, so how could things have gone this wrong?"

"That's a good question…" Jack frowned thoughtfully.

"E-Excuse me," Tish suddenly spoke, breaking free of her mother's arms and standing, approaching them. "You two know Martha?"

Jack and Reid turned and slowly faced the Jones family, both looking suddenly extremely uncomfortable.

"Sorta," Jack nodded, "We just met."

Reid agreed, "About three days ago I met her,"

"… Where… Where is she? Where did she go?" Tish's voice warbled a little and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. It nearly broke Reid's heart to see her so frightened and worried. She didn't deserve this. None of them did.

Jack swallowed, "She'll be fine," he assured her, "And we'll fix this."

"Exactly how do you plan on doing that?" Francine Jones was more angry than frightened at the moment. Anger was easier for her to deal with than fear and she wasn't about to break down in front of her daughter, ex-husband and two total strangers anyway.

"The Doctor," Reid and Jack said at the same time, ignoring Francine's confused and disbelieving look.

"Trust us," Jack said, "If anyone can find a way out of this, it's him."

Reid nodded, "He'll have a plan, he always seems to."

"Until then, let's focus on surviving this nightmare, okay?" Jack said, glancing back down the empty hall for a moment. "Seeing as we aren't going anywhere anytime soon, let's talk. Spencer and I can explain everything. Well, most of it."

~/.\~

It was nearing three in the morning in Virginia and CNN was still broadcasting the live conference from onboard the Valiant. Most of the state was still awake, glued to their television screens to watch what the White House was calling "the most groundbreaking, revolultionary meeting in recorded history".

Leroy Jethro Gibbs was not most people and could be found instead in the basement of his house, a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table and a sander in his hand. He was almost entirely oblivious to the chaos that descended onto the world until he heard the shattering of a window upstairs and froze.

Keen eyes glued themselves to the basement door and he sat the sander down, reaching instead for the loaded gun he kept in reach at all times. Another window shattered and he headed toward the door cautiously, hearing things break and shatter upstairs.

He was almost entirely silent as he pushed the basement door open and eased his way into the upper level of the house, looking around. It was almost as if a bomb had gone off inside the room, and if anyone knew what that looked like it was Gibbs. But there was no one insight and there was no way anyone had busted in and left that quickly.

He heard a faint whirring noise and spun around just in time to feel something hot and sharp tear through the skin on his arm.

"Goddammit!" he swore loudly as he spun to face his attacker and his face suddenly froze incredulously as he stared at a floating black ball with winking white and yellow lights.

"What the hell?"

The thing started coming at him again and he backed up quickly, firing off two shots that grazed off the ball like nothing, Gibbs didn't think they'd even left a dent in the metal. When a second one appeared behind the first Gibbs decided it was time to stop taking chances and ran for the door, the things right on his tail.

He emptied his clip at the bastards, but they just kept right on coming and he only just managed to slam the door of his vehicle and slam his foot on the gas when they showed up. One of the blades spinning around the machines managed to scrape a decent chunk out of the driver side door, but they weren't quite fast enough to catch him.

Breathing heavily, arm bleeding and throbbing and too many unanswered questions buzzing around in his mind, Gibbs ended up going to the only place he knew to go. NCIS headquarters.

~/.\~

"It's after three in the morning," Prentiss yawned and blinked her eyes. "We should get some sleep."

Hotch had already gone home for the night an hour ago; Hailey wasn't the most happy about him working late on cases, but to stay late and watch the news with the team? Well, she would've been less than forgiving then. Gideon was gone as well, going home to his apartment to watch the coverage. The rest of the team ended up holed up in Garcia's office, watching live coverage of the Valiant.

"It's barely started yet!" Reid complained, "How many chances are we going to get to see real aliens on television?"

"If they are real aliens, Kid," Morgan said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. "This could all be a hoax you know."

"We could do what sensible people do," JJ said, leaning back in her seat. "What the recap tomorrow."

"But this is live, Jayje," Garcia argued. "If the aliens are real do you wanna be the one to tell your kids you watched the recap because you were tired?"

JJ smiled and shook her head, "It's way past my bedtime," she said, "Staying up 'til three in the morning hasn't been acceptable since college."

Morgan laughed and started to say something when they all heard the screams on the TV monitor and their eyes shot back to the screen to watch in horror as the Toclafane shot President Winters.

"Oh… Oh my God," JJ's eyes were wide in shock.

Saxon was grinning joyously as he declared himself Master of all and the team watched in silent horror as a man they hadn't even noticed before was tortured. Just when they thought it couldn't get any worse, Prentiss gasped.

"Reid!"

"What?" the young man frowned, glancing at his co-worked whose eyes were riveted to the screen.

"No, look! That's… that's you." She pointed at the screen and sure enough, just a little to the front of the crowd, kneeling over a dead body was none other than Spencer Reid. He looked a bit different but there was no mistaking him.

"How…?" Reid's eyes were wide as he stared at himself on the screen. "That's impossible!"

"That's you, Reid," Morgan shook his head in disbelief, "Looks like you've got a doppelganger."

And just at that moment, all Hell broke loose.

~/.\~

Martha landed with a thud on the ground below and stood shakily, looking up and seeing the sky blotted with Toclafane, millions of them at least, like an angry swarm of locusts. She could hear distant screams and if she tilted her head back, she could just make out the Valiant in the sky, the only place the Toclafane hadn't touched. She prayed that meant that her family, at least, was safe from them.

Clutching Jack's Vortex Manipulator, Martha looked around her. She wasn't anywhere she recognized but she must've been near enough to London if she could see the Valiant in the skies. She felt sick to her stomach thinking of all the people who were dying, all the pain the Master was inflicting on the world. And right now, she was the only one who could stop it.

Closing her eyes, Martha squared her shoulders resolutely and marched forward, toward the city being destroyed. Whatever happened, she was going to put this right because if she didn't, there was no telling what would become of the world.

~/.\~

"Jane?" Teresa Lisbon glanced out at the bullpen as she left her office and spotted the familiar, curly mop of blond hair on the couch. "You're still here? It's after midnight."

Jane didn't respond, just lying there, staring up at the ceiling, hands folded across his chest. Lisbon sighed heavily and shook her head. She'd been working with Patrick Jane for a few years now. Long enough to know exactly what was bothering him at the moment.

She hesitated for a moment before speaking. She wasn't exactly the person to comfort someone readily, she was a bit awkward when it came to emotional scenes and besides that, she despised talking about anyone's personal life at work. But she didn't want Jane to go and do something stupid and he had no one else so what else could she do?

"Jane… you know today was a win, right? You solved the case."

"Meh," Jane shrugged and still didn't look away from the ceiling, sounding dejected and unconvinced.

"We'll get him," she said, "Next time. Don't beat yourself up about this."

For a moment, Jane was silent, then he slowly sat up and looked down at the floor for a second before turning those sad blue eyes on her.

"Next time? That's what everyone keeps saying isn't it? Next time. We'll catch him next time. We never do and then he slips right through your fingers, again. He's smarter than you, all of you, and you think you'll get him 'next time'?"

Lisbon sighed, "Jane, I know you're upset, I know how much this means to you, but Red John is just a man and we will find him one day. You've just got to be patient. Let us do our jobs, alright?"

"Yeah," Jane looked away, eyes fixed on the yellow folder he'd tossed to the floor before lying down. "Patience. I'm not good with patience."

Lisbon snorted, "I've noticed," she said, "But what else can we do, Jane? …Listen, um, Cho and Rigsby said they were going out for drinks. You should've gone with them."

"No," Jane shook his head and slipped back down onto the couch, resting his head against the arm.

Lisbon sighed, "You might have had fun," she said.

"And so would you, yet you didn't go," Jane said, still not looking back at her.

"Who said -," she stopped and rolled her eyes. "No, I didn't. It's late, I'm going home to get some sleep."

"No you're not," Jane argued. "You're going home to sit up all night, alone, thinking about what you could've done different to save that girl today because you think it's your fault she's dead."

Lisbon's jaw locked and she glared at the man, about to tell him he could go screw himself when the window above him shattered, sending glass spilling all over him and suddenly the room was full of the floating black aliens she'd seen on the news earlier.

Her hand went to her gun immediately, "What the -?"

And then the blades came out and began spinning as they approached her.

"Oh my God…"

~/.\~

The first place Sherlock went was Francine Jones' home. It was empty at the moment, not even police vans were parked outside any longer. It was no hard feat for Sherlock to slip inside. What he found was, at first, a whole lot of nothing.

The Jones family appeared just as they had on paper. Normal, boring and ultimately unthreatening. Family photographs sat over the mantle. He noticed a distinct lack of photos of Clive Jones and noted that the divorce had obviously not been an amicable one. He'd probably cheated on her.

The house was neat and clean and respectable and just what he'd expect from a divorced mother of three adult children. He had no idea what Saxon could have possibly wanted with these people. There was nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary in the home.

That is, until he was inspecting the book case and found not one but two small cameras hidden just out of sight. So someone, likely Saxon, had been spying on the Joneses.

"Interesting," he murmured to himself, twirling one of the cameras around between long fingers. Further inspection proved that there were eight more cameras hidden strategically throughout the home and the phones had been wiretapped rather crudely. The wiretapping, at least, the family could not have missed unless they were blind.

So they were being watched, monitored, most likely by Saxon, and very probably knew it. Saxon must've been threatening them. But how? As far as Sherlock could tell, they had nothing of any value to any politician.

He was in the upstairs master bedroom when they came. A least half a dozen of them swarming through the house, blades spinning, lights winking at him.

Sherlock was a fairly well-versed fighter, but he had no idea how he was supposed to combat these things. He ran and ducked and threw any furniture he could lift at them but they just continued coming at him. He ended up with his back to the front door, fingers blindly trying to twist the knob while he tried to hold the Toclafane back with a broken leg from a coffee table.

Not that it did much good, the blades cut right through the wood. Just when Sherlock was absolutely certain that he was a dead man – and just as a general rule, when Sherlock is certain of something it's usually correct – the door sprung open and he nearly fell out of it, being grabbed by a set of surprisingly strong hands and the next thing he knew he was in some junk yard and his head ached like he'd been hit with a bowling ball.

Managing to keep himself on his feet he spun around and came face to face with none other than Martha Jones. Icy blue eyes widened and he pointed what was left of the leg at her, "You've… teleported me somehow…" he said. Clearly there was more going on here than meets the eye.

Martha was breathing heavily, her head aching and her stomach lurching, but she wasn't so disoriented that she didn't managed a shocked expression at how coolly this man took teleportation. "Yeah," she swallowed and cracked her back, wincing and shaking her head to clear it. "Sorry. I did just save your life. Thanks would be nice."

Sherlock raised a brow at her curiously, as if asking why on earth he was required to thank her.

"I have some questions," he said.

Martha snorted, "You've got questions? How 'bout you answer mine first? Starting with what the hell you were doing in my mum's house?"

~/.\~

It was midmorning and the sun was already bearing down on them in the tent. Dr. John Watson scrubbed his arm over his forehead and wished for air-conditioning. They'd been outside of a small village for several days now, staying in tents. More men than ever were coming in wounded and going home veterans without the use of their arms or legs. It was enough to make John hate the whole bloody world.

Things had been quiet, though, for the last day or so and John was plenty happy not to see any more men bloody and destroyed. From hi experience, it was a kinder thing for them to die in most cases. He couldn't imagine the Hell they were returning home to in the condition so many of them were in.

They were getting ready to go into the village that day, when the bright sky above them suddenly darkened and then the screaming started. Then men grabbed their guns on instinct and raced outside to see what was happening.

At first, they thought it must be some new weapon, but it was killing everyone without any discrimination as far as they could tell.

John hit at least four of them and felt panic when the bullets had little effect on them at all. Once they got closer, he realized they came wielding at least a dozen sharp and lethal blades. The gun in his hands felt heavy and useless but if he couldn't shoot them, he'd just have to find another use for it. He swung it towards the things, three of them chasing him as he ducked, swerved and swung. It batted them away temporarily, but those blades were making a chew toy of the weapon and soon he was sure he'd be out of luck and sliced to pieces.

He stumbled and the gun flew from his grasp as the things descended on him. Heart racing, hands shaking, John closed his eyes and tensed, waiting for the inevitable end. He heard someone grunt and a pained hiss and opened his eyes to see Jake Talley standing over him, one hand gripping one of the blades and swinging the metal thing into the two others.

They collided with such brutal force that sparks flew as the blades mangled one another the things caved in on themselves, the three of them falling to the ground. Breathing heavily, Jake swore under his breath and stared down at the bloody gash on his hand before holding out his uninjured hand to John.

"Bloody hell, Talley," John stared in awe at the other man. "How…?"

Jake smiled a bit, "Told you, Watson. What happened last month wasn't no fluke accident. I can't explain it, but… Sure as hell came in handy today, huh?"

~/.\~

In the dark cemetery, Sam stood above the grave, covered in dirt and holding a muddy shovel, while Dean tossed his shovel to the side and picked up the salt container. They doused the corpse inside the coffin with the salt and lighter fluid and Dean threw in the match, the flames dancing in their eyes.

"Don't you wish it could always be this easy?" Dean asked, glancing over at his brother.

Sam snorted. "Yeah, easy," he muttered. "He almost kill you last night, Dean."

"Yeah, but on the plus side. We found the bones, burned 'em. No more Mr. Angry Spirit."

Sam nodded and grabbed the shovels. "And now, I need a shower."

"Oldest gets to shower first, Sammy,"

"Since when?"

"Since I said,"

Sam smirked and threw the shovels into the trunk of the Impala alongside the salt gun they'd taken just in case the ghost decided to show up and try and stop them. For once, it had been fairly smooth sailing for them.

They were on the road, driving back to the motel when something slammed into the back of the car and Dean frowned, glancing into the rearview mirror. "What the hell was that?"

"No idea," Sam had turned almost all the way around in his seat. There wasn't another car behind them and the night was almost pitch black. "Probably just an animal, Dean,"

But when they got to the motel, they saw a different story. The motel was in shambles, windows busted, doors torn off hinges. People were dead everywhere. The receptionist, the manager. The ten other guests staying in the rundown joint. Not a single survivor. All of them had been ripped to shreds.

"What the hell kind of monster could do this?" Sam asked, kneeling next to the body of a young woman. The sticky blood was pooling around her body and squelched a bit under his boot.

They went back to the Impala to grab their guns and in the faint light from the one not busted streetlamp they saw the damage done from whatever had hit them and Dean almost had a heart attack, his hand hovering over the nasty dent where it looked like something had sliced almost all the way through the trunk lid, tearing metal and paint away with it.

"What did they do to you, Baby?" he whispered, shaking his head as he grabbed his gun.

"Think they're still here?"

"If they're smart, they're gone," Dean said, still eyeing the damage to his car and coming very near hyperventilation. "Because if I find who did this to her, I'm gonna rip them apart."

They approached the motel with caution, fingers resting on the triggers of their guns. It was eerily quiet as they made their way through the reception area and toward the bedrooms again. They had to step over a few dead bodies on their way, but didn't run into anything strange as they neared the back rooms.

The television was going in one of the rooms as they entered. Dean went to turn it off but Sam stopped him.

"Wait, wait, wait," he grabbed Dean's arm and pointed to the screen. "Look…"

It tuned to the news and a shaky camera was showing Toclafane spewing forth from the sky, massacring people in the streets. People screaming and running in panic. Images coming from London, New York, San Francisco. Everywhere. Sam and Dean locked eyes.

"Think that's what happened here?"

Sam glanced down at the dead man on the floor, "Looks like it,"

"Damn," Dean turned the TV off and shook his head. "What'd I say? Those Toclafane things were bad news."

"…Dean, those things are all over the world. How are we supposed to fight something like that?"

"I don't know," Dean frowned, "But we aren't doing it alone."

For a moment, Sam was confused, then he slowly nodded. "Right. Well, we'd better hit the road. It'll take a couple of hours to get to the Roadhouse from here and we don't know how many more of those things are out there."

~/.\~

"I think it's dead," Tosh whispered. None of them were daring to speak too loudly or even get too close to the metal man.

"Let's hope so," Gwen said. "But we should probably get out of here."

"Yeah, I second that," Owen nodded, hand tightened around his gun. "Let's get back to the computer room. Maybe we can shoot our way through the door."

"What if it wakes up?" Ianto's eyes were still glued to the Cyberman, voice shaking just a little.

"Then we'll… we'll kill it." Gwen said, "But I think Tosh is right. It's dead."

"Why would Saxon trap us with a dead Cyberman? That's seems slightly pointless," Owen pointed out.

"Well, we can ask him that, once we get out of here. Now come on," Gwen snapped, leading the way back to the computer room. It seemed to have gotten darker since they'd left, but they found the door easily. The hard part would be getting it open since it refused to move an inch.

Owen did try shooting at the locking mechanism, but it did not good. The electric lock just fizzled and sparked and the door still wouldn't budge.

"There's got to be a way out of here," Gwen put her hands on her hips, staring at the door. "If the lock is broken, the door's just heavy. We should be able to push it open."

"Yeah, well, apparently not," Owen said, "In case you missed it, we've been pushing the door for about ten minutes. It's not going anywhere."

"We've got to try something!" Gwen snapped at him.

"How about we try something that might actually work?"

"If you've got a better idea, Owen, let's hear it. Otherwise, shut up and keep pushing."

"Both of you, shut up!" Ianto suddenly snapped. Gwen and Owen fell silent for a moment, staring at Ianto in shock. Just when Owen started to make another smartass remark, Ianto held his hand up and pointed down the hall they'd just come from.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered.

And faintly, they could hear it. The sound of metal hitting metal in a constant rhythm. Like footsteps. Getting closer.

~DW/CM~

A/N: …So I actually managed to get all the fandoms in there, some a couple of times. More Doctor/Master interaction next chapter and I'm sure you've noticed that not EVERY character will have a part in EVERY chapter. They'd been ridiculously long if I wrote them all in at once. But I can do most of them at least. You'll get to see more NCIS and Mentalist next chapter and Hotch & Gideon as well.

Oh, and in case anyone didn't realize, Jake Talley would be one of the special kids Azazel created, the one with the super-strength. I figured since he and John were both in Afghanistan, what the hell? They can know each other.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review!