AN: Sorry this one took so long, I was really stumped on what I should have these Cybermen be doing.

-Wedding Crashers-

Arachnoids in the UK

It was beyond Mickey's understanding why Rose had decided she was going to have this wedding in the back of beyond, out in the middle of a sprawling forest. And in December, of all the months. At least if she'd chosen a venue in London it wouldn't have been as easy to hide big armies of alien invaders; UNIT would have blasted them out of the sky long before they could start cloning people or amassing their forces in the wilderness. It was much too cold to be wandering around in the dark at night when none of them had any coats; he was dying to get back to the hotel and to Martha.

"How does this machine work, exactly?" Luke Smith enquired, at Jake's elbow. He was very intrigued by the flashing Cyberman tracker Jake had brought from the parallel universe. "You said it picks up on how they communicate?"

"They don't talk to each other," Jake explained, "Not verbally, they just send signals like computers do. They get commands from a leader – can be a human, can be another Cyberman or something like that – and then all act to follow them, no room for deviation. Everything's black and white to a Cyberman."

"It depends," said Mickey, "I've seen them reprogrammed before."

"Reprogrammed?" asked Jake as they trudged through the frost, breaking branches as they went.

"Made self-aware and conscious, but without the pain that comes with disabling their emotion inhibitor," he said, "There's a whole city of them living under the sea in a downed spaceship."

"You what?" Jake was aghast, "A city? Of Cybermen? And you just trust them?"

"Yeah, how does that work?" asked Rani, "What if these Cybermen here are those same ones?"

"I doubt it, they were stranded, the ship didn't work at all. And they're not exactly waterproof," said Mickey.

"How is that possible? Someone made Cybermen behave like humans again?"

"Oswin did it," said Mickey.

"Who's that?" asked Jake.

"The one with the wheelchair and the limp," said Mickey, "Clara's twin. She reprogrammed them all, sent out a massive update. She was the only one who believed in what she was doing, too… well, and Nios, but she's got a vested interest in the wellbeing of robots."

"I think 'robot' is kind of offensive," said Esther, "She doesn't like it."

"Well, you know what I mean."

"You're telling me that one person was able to reprogram an entire city full of Cybermen?" said Jake.

"Yeah."

"And she's at that wedding?"

"Yes."

"And we didn't bring her with us?"

Mickey paused, "…Yeah… maybe we should go back and get her?"

"That would mean either making her walk or pushing a wheelchair through all these trees," Esther pointed out, "I don't think she'd enjoy that whole lot. Besides, we've got you and your technopathy with us," she smiled.

"And Luke," said Clyde, "He's a genius, too."

"I'm not sure I'd know how to reprogram thousands of Cybermen, though," said Luke, "It would take specialist software, and who knows how long that would take to write? Months, years? Do you know if she has it saved anywhere?"

"I think she was making it up as she went along," said Mickey.

"Are we getting close?" Rani asked Jake. All eyes were on the beeping device.

"I don't know, it doesn't work like that."

"Then how does it work?"

"It doesn't beep more the closer you are."

"Useful," she muttered.

"You could just run and look," said Clyde.

"I can't run in these shoes," she said, "And I'm not going barefoot in this forest."

"Give it to me," said Mickey, taking the device from Jake. He stopped walking and held it for a few seconds, closing his eyes very seriously. They all watched. Mickey opened his eyes. "That way," he pointed into the gloom. He made to return the device to Jake, but Jake told him to hang onto it.

"You'll get more use out of it than I will," he said, so they continued to walk.

As they did, Esther, who had a habit of becoming a fly on the wall when she was in the company of strangers, was struck by the ridiculousness of it all. A Dalek in Donna's shower, Slitheen brewing up poisoned soup, Sontarans cloning the mother of the bride, and now Cybermen hiding in the woods. And she'd thought the Miracle was bad. She was desperate for the evening to end so that she could go to bed and back home to Hollowmire, which looked to be a saner place by the minute. But traipsing through the dark, cold woods was still better than being in a room full of loud, drunk people – at least, Esther thought so. She may be alone in that opinion.

"Stop," said Sky, holding up a hand. "We're close."

"How do you know?" asked Esther.

"I can sense them, they're electronic."

"You can sense that?"

"Can you not?"

Esther shuffled uncomfortably, "Not really…"

"Quiet," said Jake, "We don't want them to hear us. They've got cyber-ears." Esther pretended like she understood what that meant as silence fell between the seven of them.

They crept through the forest, getting further and further away from the wedding venue – they'd stopped being able to hear the music a long time ago. Sky led the way, moonlight illuminating the tree trunks ahead of them, and Jake even switched off the beeping device to stop the noise from tipping off the Cybermen. It didn't take long for them to find them.

A large section of woodland had been razed; trees were stacked on top of each other to create a makeshift fence blocking the clearing beyond from view. But there were Cybermen there alright; they could hear them, unintelligible, digitised noises coming from the other side of the logs. They snuck along the outskirts until they got to a gap in the perimeter where they could just about see what was going on, and whatever Esther thought they would find could not compare to what they did.

A handful of Cybermen were gathered underneath an enormous, metal structure. It wasn't easy to see what this structure actually was since it was so large it blocked out most of the moonlight, but it certainly didn't belong at a wedding, that was for sure.

"Will it be ready for activation?" one Cyberman asked.

"It is not responding appropriately to the Cyberiad," a second answered. "It will be activated, but we have yet to establish control."

"What are they building?" Esther whispered, "Something they can't control?"

"The Doctor once told me he found some Cybermen building a giant Cyberman," said Mickey.

"It doesn't look like a Cyberman," said Luke, squinting at the construct above them. It wasn't humanoid, that was clear by the fact it had what looked like a great many legs, but it was too dark to see any details. "It looks like-"

"Intruders!" The Cybermen had spotted them. "You will be upgraded to serve the invasion."

"There aren't a lot of you to say this is an invasion!" Jake shouted at them. He was right, there were only four, but Esther didn't think yelling that at them was a good idea.

"Show yourselves or be deleted." Jake wasn't one to back down and was the first to march into the clearing, though Esther couldn't help but think that tactically, this was a bad move. But he'd made up their minds for them, so they were stuck following, trudging out into the clearing underneath the shadow of the giant mechanoid.

"The Doctor is not among you."

"You're not enough of a threat for him to bother," said Jake.

"I don't think you should get them mad," said Esther.

"They can't get mad, they don't have any emotions."

"Careful," said Mickey, "There are ways to restore their humanity, we can't just take them out. And we need to know what their plan is."

"Humanity will submit to the will of Mondas," said one of the Cybermen.

"Mondas? What's that?" asked Jake.

"Earth's twin planet," said Luke, "It was pushed out of orbit and drifted too far away from the sun. They did this to themselves to withstand the cold."

"Humans are weak, they must be upgraded. They will kneel before us and beg to be transformed. We have studied Earth, and will use mankind's greatest fear against them."

"And what is 'mankind's greatest fear'?" asked Clyde, "I think getting my brain scooped out and stuck in one of you lot sounds bad, how're you going to top that?"

"It's a spider!" Luke exclaimed. "Look!" He was pointing at the object above them, which was not suspended from the trees but rather towering high because it had eight, enormous legs. As soon as he said it, Esther could see that that was what it was: a giant, robot spider. A mecha-spider. A cyber spider.

"Aren't there spiders on Mondas?" asked Rani.

"Organic life does not survive; it is too weak."

"All Earth intelligence indicates that there is nothing humans fear more than these creatures. We have used this fear to create the ultimate weapon to make Earth surrender to us. The Doctor will be the first to fall," the Cybermen explained.

"What does it do?" asked Esther.

"It will conjure fear and cowardice like this planet has never known."

"But how does it do that? Does it have any weapons? Can it shoot lasers, like Mechagodzilla?"

"It will strike fear-"

"You know that arachnophobia is irrational, don't you? Spiders are only dangerous to humans if they're venomous. Is your big robot venomous?" They didn't say anything.

"This plan doesn't sound like you've thought it through," said Mickey.

"The Cyber-Planner has more thoughts in a nanosecond than a human does in a lifetime."

"It's all about quality, not quantity," quipped Clyde. "Robot spiders aren't very scary, and the small ones are a lot more frightening."

"Can it make a web?" asked Esther, "Or bite? Does it even have a mouth?" Looking up at the spider's underside, she couldn't see anything resembling a mouth, it was almost completely featureless – the only thing she could see was a black node on its silver belly that looked a little like a giant plug socket. She would wager that the node was its weak point or she'd never played a video game, but only time would tell if they would need to exploit this.

"Activate the Arachnoid," ordered one of the Cybermen. "These humans will be annihilated, they are not suitable to converge with the Cyberiad."

"What's the Cyberiad?" asked Sky.

"Their hive mind," Luke explained, "They're all connected."

"It's the Cyberiad communications that the tracker picks up," added Jake.

"Shouldn't we do something? They're turning on the big spider," said Rani as the Cybermen approached a large control panel dead in the centre of the clearing, beneath the spider. On top of it was a big tesla coil.

"We should get behind the trees before that thing starts throwing off electricity," said Luke, backing away. They all followed, even Esther; she wouldn't come to any harm no matter how close she was to the coil, but she was very curious to see what would happen when they turned on the spider.

They ducked behind the logs just in time. The tesla coil was activated and began pumping out waves of arc lightning that were drawn to the black node on the 'Arachnoid's' underbelly.

"Where are they getting the electricity from?" asked Clyde, shouting over the sound of the tesla coil crackling, "They've been causing power outages since yesterday, they can't be generating it from thin air."

"There's a substation nearby, I memorised all the substations in the vicinity before coming down here," said Esther, "That thing is connected to the national grid."

"We need to do something," said Jake, "That monster could destroy the whole hotel – even if it can't shoot lasers, it's still bloody huge! Huge enough to crush a person!"

"I'm not sure we need to do anything," said Mickey, watching it carefully as slowly it began to move. "Think about it – a Cyberman has the brain of a human, right? So a Cyber-Spider-"

"They wouldn't put the brain of a spider inside that thing," said Esther, "That's crazy."

"Unless they're so convinced by the natural, fear-generating powers of spiders," said Mickey, "They did say they couldn't get it to communicate properly with the Cyberiad. Spiders must have tiny brains."

"Actually, eighty percent of a spider's body is taken up by its brain and nervous system," said Esther, "The brain extends into its legs."

"What is it with you and useless facts?" asked Rani.

"Spiders still aren't sentient regardless of how big their brains are. They're still small," said Luke.

"The bigger a spider is, the smaller its brain is, relatively speaking," added Esther.

"You're very strange," Sky told her.

"Thanks!"

"Look," said Mickey, "Cybermen already have a hard enough time getting the people they upgrade to adjust to their circumstances, and at least they look and move like people. They wouldn't stick a human brain in that thing, and if they're wanting to connect it to the Cyberiad, it won't have a pilot inside it. And we know they're stupid, that's why they built the spider in the first place."

"Mickey's got a point," said Luke, "They definitely must be stupid."

"Exactly!" said Mickey, "We have to-"

"LOOK OUT!" Rani shouted. The spider was beginning to walk and Jake had been correct: it was still large enough to cause a lot of damage even if it didn't have all the nuances of Mechagodzilla. The spider thundered through the trees, going right towards the hotel. It was over three storeys high and could probably plough through the building if they didn't stop it, by simply walking into it if nothing else. And it was fast.

"This is not what the Cyber Planner commands, you will cease," the Cybermen tried to get a grip on what the spider was doing, but it was clear they didn't have any control.

"We have to stop it!"

In response to this, Clyde held out both his hands and sent out a blast of electromagnetic radiation straight for one of the spider's back legs. The metal wilted a little under the heat, but it wasn't powerful enough to have any meaningful effect, and there was no way he could take out all eight legs to stop it from moving on his own.

"You'll have to do it," Sky said to Esther.

"Me!?"

"She's right, I don't get a lot of practice creating blasts of radiation," said Clyde, "Don't want to accidentally cause another Chernobyl."

"But – what about Rani?"

"What am I meant to do? I'm a speedster, I can only outrun it," she said, "I could stop it from breathing if it had a nose."

"I – but – I don't-"

"Go!" said Mickey, "There's no time to argue!"

She did not understand how she was suddenly the one lumbered with the entire responsibility of stopping a rampaging, robot spider from levelling a stately home in rural Middlesex, but she was. She only wished she'd worked out a way to use her powers to move faster, but if that was one of her abilities it remained elusive. So, she took off running, because it was all she could do, trying to reach the spider again.

Esther pulled off her gloves and tried to throw a few lightning bolts in the spider's direction, but the blasts only dispelled on its metal exoskeleton – her only chance to breach it was the charging port underneath she'd spotted earlier, and she would have to overload it, which was easier said than done. A Cyberman creation would surely have measures in place to try and stop it being overloaded, but they wouldn't be prepared for her.

Finally she managed to get underneath the spider's body again, close enough to reach out a hand to try and target the node. Her first blast missed the mark and only hit the metal again, but the second managed to hit the spot. The spider juddered but was only impeded for a few seconds; it continued its march through the forest, knocking down trees as it went without a care in the world. It would take a lot more energy to put the thing down permanently.

She didn't get lucky enough to hit the node again for a few more tries – it was hard to aim and shoot even if she was standing still since she, like Clyde, had no practice with her powers – but aiming for a moving target almost twenty feet above her? It was a skill she was having to develop on the fly, hurling bolts of electricity for the weak point. When she next struck her mark the spider twitched and paused long enough for her to get it again in quick succession, slowing its pace so that she could stand directly underneath. Then it wasn't a question of accuracy, it was a question of power, and she did not know whether she had enough.

As the spider struggled and tried to resume its path of destruction, she held both of her hands palm-up above her head and tried her hardest to summon as much of the energy in her body that she could spare – which wasn't a lot because it took an immense amount of energy to keep a human up and functioning indefinitely – channelling it upwards through her arms. Now, the arc lightning was not whipping around a tesla coil but was being wielded, naked and deadly, funnelled directly into the circuit node on the cyber-spider's metal belly. It began to make a wailing sound as all of its components were simultaneously overloaded, jittering side-to-side and knocking down even more trees. The electrical crackling was punctuated by a loud bang! and smoke began to curl out from the gaps in the spider's armour at its joints.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Jake yelled at her. Rani crashed into Esther to get her to safety as the spider began to writhe like it was having a seizure. It spasmed violently and toppled to the side, noises of machinery clanking and failing permeated the air, and found its way onto its back where its eight, great legs curled in on top of it. As if it were a real spider.

Esther collapsed into a nearby tree that had not fallen victim to the Arachnoid.

"Are you okay? That was amazing," said Rani.

"I need to pay a visit to that substation," she said, breathing deeply, "If I run out of electricity I'll die." She knew she was running low when Rani was actually able to touch her to help her walk off her exhaustion; normally she threw off so many sparks that it was impossible for someone to do that without getting a nasty shock.

"What do we do about that thing?" asked Jake.

"Send someone else to get rid of it in the morning," said Mickey. "Rose can do it. After we tell her about everything that's happened today."

"I thought this stuff was all a secret?" said Clyde.

"She'll have to know sooner or later, just not on her wedding night."

"The Cybermen are dead," said Sky abruptly. Perplexed, Jake took out his tracking device and switched it back on: it didn't make a sound. "I think the spider was connected to the Cyberiad after all. Killing it must have killed them, too." Sure enough, when they returned to the clearing, the four Cybermen were lying in a heap, smoking, their brains reduced to pulp. Esther felt an overwhelming sense of guilt: Cybermen could be rescued, but these ones had become collateral damage.

"That's my fault," she said numbly, "If we'd brought Oswin, maybe we could have saved them."

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty," said Rani, "You did what any of us would have done if we could shoot bolts of lightning."

"She's right," said Sky, "I wish I could do that."

"You know what they say," Esther began quietly, "With great power comes great responsibility…"

"Try not to dwell on it," Mickey told her, "Now – if we're quick at the substation, we can make it back before they eat all the cake and go to bed. Come on!"