The Doctor watched Rose from the projector. The skinny blonde immediately turned up the lights to maximum, before making a mad dash to the Sanitation Mode. She began flipping switches and pressing buttons as frantically as possible. While the Doctor could see the safety settings quickly go into the red...
Once she was done, Rose stood tall, and pulled out a hand held speaker from her pocket. The Doctor watched as she smiled at the Camera... and waited.
The Doctor's eyes widened, "What is she doing!?"
River smiled, "You'll see. She really is a companion to the Doctor."
The lights suddenly started going out, as if the darkness was rushing towards her. Rose just continued to stand there, waiting.
The Medical Student looked at her, his eyes filled with fear. "Is she mad!"
"You said they were intelligent," River reminded, just as Rose switched on the speaker. "So she's giving them a choice."
"Hungry," a demonic voice echoed around the room, as if a billion trillion voices spoke at once, "So Hungry."
"If I flip this switch we all die, right here, right now." Rose called out. The voices instantly stopped. The shadows even stopped their approach.
"You... speak..." The shadow demon hesitantly asked.
Rose smiled, holding up the device, "Universal translator, it let's us understand each other, and as you can see. I'm not some mindless animal, I can talk, I have emotions, I have a soul... much like yourself..."
The demon of shadows said mournfully, "Our elders talk... they have emotions... they have... souls all their own. Yet we feed on them. We have no choice. Hungry, so hungry, no food in these cursed forest. You are food, you are MEAT!"
"What if we could bring you some place with meat."
"Cursed as these forest may be... these are OUR forest..."
"Then how about we bring the meat to you." The shadows stirred as she spoke. "Imagine it, no more killing the old so the young could live. You let the people trapped in the library's computers, free, and they can leave to tell others the deal. They will feed you, might even bring a steady supply of other resources to help your citizens flourish. They will gladly trade their resources in exchange for you letting them read your books."
"THE TREES HATCH THE YOUNG!" the shadows raged.
"Oh? Then I suppose that is a problem..." Rose thought, "We came here to reopen the library, but if the books are off limits then they will have to settle for a planet wide virtual reality, of everything ever written... that's the next best thing really.
"You still have something each of you can benefit from. Where I come from, that's called Tourism. All you would have to do is stop feeding on intelligent lifeforms, and you will get more food then you thought possible. Then you can start moving forward as a civilization.
"We could work together, so that our peoples could be... beautiful... and thriving. We can teach each other so much."
"You claim to have the power to destroy us."
"I do, but now..." She flipped a switch. The terminal suddenly began to spark, and then smoke... before shutting down completely, "No one does..."
"Why?" The shadows asked, "You give up your only advantage?"
"Don't get me wrong. I'm all for blasting the irredeemable evil, but I don't think that's you. You have had to suffer here for long enough... let us help you."
"Why? Why would you do any of this for us? Our ancestors ravaged these forests, killed millions... we have only grown more cruel in the hundred Generations since then... so, yellow girl, why?"
Rose simply replied, "Kindness."
This moment, a fixed point in time, had been bent to the extreme. So many changes it had to compensate for. So many lives, meant to end this day, that would now continue to flourish. Lives that would continue to effect the Cosmos in their own extremes... this singular moment, that would define the Doctor, changed forever. Subsequently altering everything that would happen next.
This moment was bent to the extreme with the hesitant declaration of free will... with the final words. "We... are open to tourism."