"Fine. But once we get back safely to the TARDIS, you are going to be hearing more from me, Alien Boy," fumed Donna, reaching out a hand to pull herself up.
"Looking forward to it," Barty muttered as he grabbed her hands and helped her inside the vent.
Barty and Donna continued to crawl through the vents, which had many more twists and turns than met the eye.
"It shouldn't be too far off. We've only been inside two rooms so far," Barty informed Donna as they shifted left upon seeing light coming from a grate in the vicinity.
"Two rooms and a broom closet," corrected Donna, slightly miffed at having to crawl through the rickety, musty-smelling vents. "And you said the same thing half an hour ago."
"Well, if someone didn't tell me to take the right up ahead then we would've been there sooner."
"I told you to go straight!"
"No, you did not!"
"Yes, I did! I said, 'Maybe we should go straight right up ahead,' and you said, 'Right,' in agreement, then for some odd reason, you went right," explained Donna.
"Then why didn't you tell me to go straight?" asked Barty in agitation.
"I did, you big alien dunce!" said Donna bitterly.
Barty shook his head. "Nevermind, I think I see a bit of blue right up ahead."
"You mean straight up ahead," corrected Donna.
"Let's not start that again!" Barty grumbled, all the while telling himself, 'It's almost over,' on repeat upon having to deal with Donna for the past few hours, when he spotted the TARDIS in the vent below. "Yes….there it is!"
He looked back, grinning at Donna as she sighed in relief, "Finally! Open it up so we can get out of here."
Barty pulled out the sonic screwdriver, ready to prise open the vent, when he heard voices coming over from the right. A bunch of them sounded croaky and grating, as though they came from Cybermen, but there was one that was quite familiar that sounded above the rest, giving authoritative commands as clear as day:
"You say he's escaped? Well, what are you waiting for? Go on and find him and do not come back until you do so!"
Upon hearing the voice, Barty froze, sonic hovering over the grate, as he felt a sudden ringing in his ears. Forgetting about their TARDIS escape, Barty turned right and crawled over to where the loud voice was coming from.
"Where are you going!?" wondered Donna, utterly flabbergasted that they had been so close to escaping this house of Cybermen horror, only for the Time Lord to go right. And after their whole argument about it, too!
Barty ignored her and didn't stop crawling until he came upon another vent below them that led out to a room that he could see was decorated all over in green and silver. It reminded him very much of the colors of Slytherin House, remembering all the times he faced off against them in Quidditch or encountered them at Hogwarts.
"I believed that I had created you all to be more competent than that! Letting our prize slip out right from underneath our noses when you know failure is not an option!" the furious voice sounded even louder now, and Barty could just make out a man with neatly-parted slicked back, gray hair standing behind the desk, spit flying out of his mouth as he shouted at a couple of Cybermen.
"It took a long time running to prepare this very plan, and if it all falls apart—" the man went on.
"Oh, I'll make sure of that, alright," muttered Barty as he aimed the sonic at the grate and pried it open. He was about to dive down it when Donna caught his ankle.
"What are you doing!?" she said shrilly, trying to keep her voice from being heard by the furious man down below. "You are going to get us killed!"
"He won't be doing the killing, I can assure you that much," said Barty, not bothering to keep his voice low as his blood boiled dangerously. "Let go of me!"
"No. You're not sounding like yourself, Doctor. I can't let you do what I think you're going to do to that man!" said Donna, quite fearful of whom she believed to be her friend as she maintained a firm hold on his ankle.
"Let go!" Barty said angrily.
"No! This isn't like you at all! You must've hit your head so hard on the console that it made you completely lose it. We have to get back to the TARDIS."
"Donna, I said to let g—OOOF!"
In the midst of their arguing, Donna's hand slipped and Barty went tumbling backwards through the open vent. He would have landed right on his head if Donna hadn't grabbed the tails of his trench coat to save him. Although now Barty was hanging upside down awkwardly like a bat, the blood rushing to his head as he met the eyes of the man who had just shouted:
"What do you expect? For him to fall out of the sky!?"
The man's eyes bulged, his jaw going slack as he spotted Barty right at that very moment. Thick silence continued to permeate the green and silver room, and Barty broke it with a mad grin stretching across his face.
"Hello, father."
A split-second later, Barty felt the trench coat give way and he slipped right out of it, tumbling forward and crashing crumpled against the wooden desk. Somewhere up above Donna called out, "Sorry!"
There was no hesitation as a couple of Cybermen came forward and hooked either of their metal arms around both of Barty's. They locked him in place as they pulled him up and forced him to sit upon the stiff wooden chair right in front of the desk.
The room was, in fact, decorated with a highly familiar flair. The emerald green curtains were open, allowing the setting sun floating out over the horizon to beam its orangeade glow upon them. The black walnut desk was neatly organized, with papers stacked properly on one side, and pencils and pens on the other. Along with the desk, of which behind sat a black leather high-back chair that looked to be made out of dragonhide, there were shelves of bookcases lined up on either corner that contained the oddest half-pieced contraptions Barty had ever seen.
There was a Muggle video tape recorder, whose reels were tangled with a charred spool of film. Beside a damaged old wooden radio was an alarm clock entangled with barbed wires. Tiny glass globes sat atop the highest shelves, sparking with purple and blue light. Various Cybermen heads rounded out the decor, each one as twisted as the next.
All and all, besides the odd assortment of Muggle artifacts and lack of quills and parchment, Barty couldn't help but think of his father's old study as he observed the orderly decorations surrounding him. The only other thing that seemed off was a long, thin crack where the paint was chipping off the wall behind the desk. It looked somewhat eerie, like a ghoulish remnant of a smiley face mocking him.
"Scan him," commanded the man wearing the crisply pressed pinstripe suit.
The scary thing was that Barty didn't see or even feel anything as the Cyberman to his left screeched out in a harsh tone with no emotion whatsoever, mouth glowing blue, as it responded, "Sensors recognize a binary vascular system. Subject recognized as the Time Lord known as the Doctor."
The man behind the desk, now over his shock upon Barty's sudden appearance, was grinning from ear to ear like a hungry lion eyeing its prized prey.
"I've been expecting you for some time now," he said, coming around from behind the desk. "Let me take a look at you."
The man gazed at him greedily, as though examining every inch of Barty's face. Thoroughly uncomfortable by this, Barty leaned back, teeth gritted together, jaw set, trying to bite back what exactly he was thinking of him at the moment.
In fact he couldn't believe it himself. He could've sworn his father was gone; he had seen to that himself, over a month ago in the Forbidden Forest, leaving nothing behind but a bone. He suppressed a shudder as he recalled that moment. It had been a foggy one, and at times even he couldn't believe he went through with it and did a proper job on his own father despite all the bitter memories of the man viewing him as nothing more than a major disappointment to the family name in the past. Or so he thought, for his father was standing right before him.
As his father made to reach towards his face, Barty nearly fell out of his chair trying to avoid his touch, which only made his father chortle as he instead ruffled his hair condescendingly.
"Why, how extraordinary. An exact duplicate…save for a few imperfections," his father murmured in awe, now reaching for Barty's wrist and feeling the double-beating of his pulse.
"Imperfections?" Barty couldn't help but blurt out, somewhat offended.
His father nodded solemnly as he dropped Barty's wrist and swept back around his desk, sitting down on the dragonhide chair. He picked up a pen, plucked a paper off the neat stack, and began to write.
"I'm afraid so. But beggars can't be choosers," he said as the pen scratched out words.
Barty noticed that the paper his father was writing upon was a copy of one of those medical examination ones he had found earlier in the operating room. Eyeing the stack of papers on the desk, Barty spotted a few yellowing ones sticking out from the pile, as though they had been haphazardly thrown there at the last second.
"The time for the forthcoming operation draws near."
Though his father muttered this to himself, Barty managed to hear it loud and clear and his blood turned cold at those words. Well, the Doctor's body already was far colder than what he was used to as human, but the point remained. His father really wasn't going to do what Barty thought he would do. Surely he wasn't going to turn him into one of those Cybermen…was he?
As Barty stared up at the two Cybermen still holding onto his arms with great unease, his father chuckled. Barty turned back to face him, a single eyebrow raised inquisitively. 'What was so funny?'
"I see that you have already met my creations. Cybermen, I call them," his father gestured over to the two mechanized beings with his free hand. "I've long figured out a way to upgrade humans to achieve their highest potential. But the Time Lord remains my ultimate prize."
"B-but you….y-you can't….I…." Barty sputtered, at a loss for words. "Oh, come off it! You don't even recognize me? Your own son?" he couldn't help but say, feeling a tad insulted.
His father paused. His pen hovered over the medical paper and blots of ink stained it as he peered over at him, his neatly-trimmed mustache wavering.
"Son? You are no son of mine. I have no son."
Right as his father said those words, Barty couldn't take it any longer and attempted to leap up out of his chair at him, only for both Cybermen to tighten their grips on his arms, forcing him back down, but not without a fight.
"You….why you….You say the same…after….trial…the dementors….Imperius Curse…twelve years…." Barty yelled incoherently, his blood boiling once more, trying with all his might to fight the Cybermen's grip. Oh, how he wished he still had his magic. If he did he wouldn't hesitate to give the man in front of him a curse so powerful of what he so rightfully deserved.
"Young man, quit this blathering at once!" the man in front of him raised his voice, quickly losing patience with him now.
"Oh yeah, just like Barty Crouch to put work over his own family," retorted Barty sourly, still tugging at the Cybermen's grips.
"Barty Crouch?" the man in front of him frowned. "I am Lumic. John Lumic, I can assure you that much."
"I know who you are. I spent my entire life living under your roof of major disappointment. Nothing was ever good enough for you, was it?" Barty spat at him, his feelings finally spilling over like a volcanic flood. "Not getting sorted in Ravenclaw or making the Quidditch team or getting 12 O.W.L.S—no it was never enough. You never even properly heard me out fourteen years ago and sent me off to the dementors. Your own son! Then you had the audacity to put mother in my place and keep me imprisoned under the Imperius Curse for over a decade….she wouldn't have wanted that, and you still did it! I'M YOUR SON! YOUR SON! AND YOU STILL—"
"That's enough!"
"And you ever wonder why I hated you all these years!? You foul…no good—"
"I SAID THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Lumic stood back up, a vein throbbing in his temple, eyes bulging out in what seemed to be just as equal a fury as Barty was in.
"I tell you that I am John Lumic, owner of the newly found Cybus Industries. I am a man of science trying to help humanity live up to the potential that has long evaded them. These Cybermen will change the world, I dare say. But why limit myself to just humans when an ancient, all-knowing species could suffice to be my second-in-command. Imagine the knowledge, the potential of it all, of having the last of the Time Lords under my direct command."
While Lumic looked on with a wistful, manic smile at his visions of the future, Barty appeared thoroughly aghast.
"Yes, quite the future. That is, if you consider cutting people open like Muggle Healers and pulling their guts out to be considered achieving their ultimate potential. And another thing, since when did you create all of this? Is this what you've been doing all these years when claiming to be 'running late in the office' at the Ministry of Magic?" Barty said bitterly.
"I wouldn't expect your feeble-mind to understand it," said Lumic coolly.
Upon being called 'feeble-minded', Barty lost his cool again. He jerked forward, gnashing his teeth, wanting nothing more but to inflict pain on the man sitting before him. But the Cybermen shoved him back down, keeping him firmly planted in his seat.
"You are quite the hot-headed one, aren't you?" Lumic said, a slight smile twitching. He seemed to find Barty's anger amusing. "Some time in the holding cell should cool you off."
With a snap of his fingers, the two Cybermen squeezing Barty's arms forced him to his feet. Barty continued to thrash about madly, struggling to free his arms from their tight grips. But even with the Doctor's increased strength, it was to no avail as the Cybermen dragged him out of Lumic's office.
Still, Barty dug his trainers into the green carpet, scuffing it as he tried to slow them down. All the while, he raved and shouted, "I'm your son! Your son! Doesn't that mean anything to you!?"
But Lumic turned his back upon him, folding his arms behind his back as he stared imperiously through the emerald curtains into the orangish glow of the setting sun.