Chapter 20
A Demon in the making.
The Doctor was clearly nuts! Did he not understand what he was asking her to do? It was incredibly risky and dangerous, not just to the ship, but to herself too.
"You want me to shrink this entire ship? Minus the Cyber-nano-bots?" Raven echoed sceptically.
"Yes." the Doctor said simply.
"Would I have to be in it?" she asked.
"Preferably yes, why?"
"The spell is simple, but do you know how hard it is to cast a spell on both myself and the world around me at the same time?" Raven said. "I don't even think I have the concentration to shrink just the whole ship."
"Ah ha" the Doctor said mysteriously.
"Ah ha, what?" she asked, getting a little irritated at these games.
"That's where I come in. If I can link my own brain to yours then perhaps you can use portions of my brain as an aid so you can take this whole five mile long hulk and reduce it down to a manageable size. From there, the Cyber-nano's should be harmless to us as the atoms around them would be too strongly bonded to break apart."
"What about the Cybermen outside?" Raven asked, "they'll be giants, and they can crush the ship."
"That's where stage two comes in. With the ship much smaller you should be able to use your powers and nudge it a few light years out of the way, and out of the reach of the Cybermen." The Doctor explained.
"You're putting a lot of faith in my abilities." Raven stated, she wasn't sure if she had that much faith in her abilities herself.
"That's because I know you can do it." the Doctor added encouragingly.
"Do I really need to shrink myself too?" Raven asked as if this was a concern to her. She didn't like the idea of being 'small'. It implied helplessness and she hated being helpless.
"Why is that a concern to you?" the Doctor asked.
"Because I've never cast this spell on myself before. The spell is simple, but I need total focus to shrink myself, or something could go wrong. Especially with a five mile long ship and its inhabitants added into the equation." Raven said, worry was clear in her voice.
She sensed the TARDIS grumble in her hands. She lifted it up to herself and looked directly at its front doors. "Don't you start. The only danger is when a spell caster casts the spell on themselves, not other..." she wanted to say more, but caught herself and realised what she was doing. Closing her eyes she inhaled deeply and blew it out. "and I'm talking to this stupid box again!"
"Raven, relax. That's why I'll be with you, we'll share the burden and the feedback should make it safer for you."
"You're making that up!" Raven accused.
"Well," the Doctor said "It's either you take a chance with your spell, or effectively become enslaved to your own philosophy under the Cybermen."
Sighing Raven returned to the medical bay to find the Doctors body.
Along the way she came across some stray Cybermen, but no Cyber-Nanos, yet. The strays she dispatched easily by using her powers to briefly open a portal to the Universe outside and she watched as the Cybermen flew out like rag dolls as the pressure escaped. Raven was able to hold her position thanks to her powers. When the portal sealed the hull integrity was restored.
She literally passed through a few doors and walls like a ghost before finally emerging through a wall into the medical bay. Some of the aliens jumped out of her way in fright as she suddenly appeared walking through a dark portal.
As she walked towards the Doctors body she caught her reflection in a glass door of a cabinet next to the Doctors still form. She looked at herself in the Doctors coat.
"It suits you." The Doctor said.
She decided not to verbally agree or disagree, but she liked it too. Pulling her eyes away from her attire she returned her attention to the Doctor and she placed the TARDIS down on the table beside his stretcher.
Dr. Wood was nowhere to be seen. Which was probably for the best because he'd probably protest as Raven removed the apparatus from the Doctors head, sat down beside him and placed the tips of her fingers at his temples.
"Contact." The Doctor said, as he made contact with her. For some reason she found herself also muttering, "Contact," and their minds joined.
To Raven it was as if a small world she had been used to had suddenly blown out its walls to reveal an even larger space next door to hers. She'd been inside the Doctors mind, but never actually joined to it like this.
"Don't get used to it." the Doctor said. She could hear just his voice now without the echos of his past incarnations. "You're just borrowing this."
Raven felt like she could do anything with this brain at her fingertips. She could certainly shrink the ship with this potential, but why stop there? She could crush a planet, put out a star, anything was possible while she was connected to a Time Lord brain.
"Raven, focus!" but she felt like she was lost at sea, lost in the maelstrom of it all.
"Rae-rae!" the Doctor called. That brought her attention to bare on him.
"Don't call me that!" she shouted.
"Got your attention though." the Doctor chuckled. "Can you shrink the ship?"
"Oh yes," she said. Her voice just oozed with admiration as she felt how deep she could reach into the well that was her powers with this extra brain power. "I can shrink the ship." she smiled at the feeling of this power as it washed over her. She felt utterly relaxed and ready to do anything. "How small? A shoe box? A match box? Smaller?"
"Just the size of a cricket pitch will do." the Doctor said, there was worry in his face "Raven are you feeling alright?"
Raven mentally shook her head. "Yeah, I'm fine. I... just felt a little weird for a second."
"Good, now I want you to concentrate. Reach out for the whole ship." the Doctor instructed.
"Just as long as you remain focused on me!" Raven said. This whole thing depended on the counterbalance of their minds. "I don't want to be crushed when the ship shrinks around me."
"Fair enough." the Doctors said.
"And I don't want to end up smaller than I should be!" Raven said pointedly.
"What's it matter? We're going to return everything to normal afterwards."
"Doctor!" Raven said forcibly.
"Okay, I'll do my best." the Doctor said mentally shrugging.
"Doctor, I will murder you if you get this wrong." Raven said. "Promise me you'll get it right!"
Mentally she got the image of the Doctor holding out his small finger from a closed fist and mentally he looped it around one of her own small fingers. "I promise" he said. What a stupid gesture to show trust! Where did he pick it up from? Putting that out of her mind she focused her mind out and cast her powers over the ship.
"Remember, a cricket pitch." the Doctor prompted.
"I KNOW!" Raven fired back at him. In reality she didn't know how big a cricket pitch would be, but she understood the relative size he was going for.
She sensed the black energy radiated out around her slowly and began to cover the whole ship. Forwards, backwards, up and down. The entire ship was cast in her power. Then all of the people around her, the crew, the aliens, the Doctor, and the Cybermen. The Cybermen were necessary because they'll damage the ship as it shrank around them if she left them. She excluded the Cyber-nano's from this process though.
She had everyone within her powers, and now she felt the power apply to her as the Doctor focused entirely on her form, trusting the Doctor could handle this simple spell.
Raven said her chimes, mentally adopted the correct hand gestures and cast her spell, the Doctor reflecting a small part of it back at her.
She felt a sensation like she was falling. Her stomach felt like it was lifting up and became weightless. She nearly lost concentration, but she redoubled her focus as she felt everything start to reduce down, including herself. Her brain felt a little numb, and her eyes felt like they hurt, but she pressed on.
"Here, I don't half feel odd." Raven heard the nosy woman say. "Here, what's that?"
Whoops, Raven forgot to include the TARDIS in her spell, to the patients it was ballooning up on the table she'd left it on, and the table broke eventually under the TARDIS' weight. She waited until the TARDIS was at the correct scale for her and she knew to stop. Perfect.
"Now, here comes the tricky bit." the Doctor said, "cast a teleportation portal and follow my mind to where it should come out." Raven did as instructed. "Now, force the ship through it, quick!"
Raven could sense the bodies of giant Cybermen baring down on the now smaller craft. But with a swift kick of her powers the ship was sent forwards, through a portal and into a different sector of space. Once they emerged Raven dropped her powers and her head fell forwards onto the Doctors chest, panting for breath. All that had really taken the energy out of her.
She freaked out as a hand touched her head and she pulled back sharply. The Doctor was there, smiling at her, "Well done" he said.
His mind was healed and he was back in control of his own body. You can't hear me can you, Doctor? No response, their minds were separated. Thank goodness.
"Oh, Raven I'm sorry. I'm so terribly sorry." the Doctor said, and Raven felt suddenly very worried.
"What?" she asked, panic in her voice. She stood up and looked at herself up and down.
"It's my fault. I'm afraid you're a little taller by a few inches." the Doctor smiled, it wasn't bad news at all. He just made it sound worse. That irritating son of a...!
"I can live with that." She said instead and looked at the Doctor, her eyes didn't smile but her mouth did, a little.
The Doctor was up, back in his frock coat, and back in action. He began looking around as if he expected the world to be different somehow. Though it didn't look like it, the ship and everyone on board it were now reduced greatly in size. If the TARDIS was once the size of a match box then that gave Raven an idea of the scale they were now on.
"Oh, good. Your uncle's recovered." the nosy woman said.
"Uncle?" the Doctor asked smiling.
"Don't ask." Raven said staring daggers at him.
"Here, did you get taller?" the woman asked, but Raven ignored her. They had more important things to talk about.
"Ugh, I can tell I'm doll sized." The Doctor said, feeling his stomach. "I always get a queasy feeling when it happens."
"This has happened to you before?" Raven asked.
"A number of times." The Doctor said, stretching his limbs out. "I always feel cramped afterwards. You know, this is like being in a mini-scope again." Raven decided not to ask what he meant by that. It was probably some adventure he'd had many life times ago.
"Right!" The Doctor announced and he opened the medical bay door and strolled out towards a wall mounted console to contact the bridge.
"Captain..." he turned to Raven, "What was her name again?"
"I never asked." Raven shrugged.
"This is Captain Jannos," came a voice, "Please identify."
"I am the Doctor, you've met my apprentice, Raven." the Doctor announced and Raven stamped him on the foot for making that up.
"Oh god, more Time Lords." Captain Jannos said.
"Listen, if you haven't noticed we've been nudged a good few light-years outside of the Cybermens influence." the Doctor said.
"I'll say. We're halfway across the sector now!" Captain Jannos said.
"Oh, whoops" the Doctor said, clearly they were further than he'd intended. "Well, you can arrive early then and impress everyone. Listen, you may have experienced something weird just now."
"You're telling me," Captain Jannos said, "a dozen giant rats have appeared all over the ship, and they're attacking the Cybermen."
The Doctor looked at Raven, her eyes were wide and all she could think to do was shrug and say "Whoops." She never included the ships rodents in her spell either.
"Is that girl with you?" Captain Jannos asked, "Where's Armstrong?"
That brought the mood to a crashing halt for Raven. She looked at the Doctor asking him through her body language to tell the Captain himself.
"I'm afraid, Private Armstrong didn't make it." the Doctor said, "I'm sorry."
The Captain's mood was a little sombre. "He was a good man, and dedicated. But lets not make his sacrifice in-vain."
"Excellent," the Doctor said, "Now listen, the Cyber-nanos can't create more Cybermen while we're this small." The Doctor explained what he'd done, though instead of telling them Raven did it with her powers he conjured some rubbish about using the TARDIS 'dimensional stabiliser' and used the TARDIS to nudge the ship further along its course. The Captain shouted at the Doctor for doing this to her ship, but the Doctor just seemed to ignore her and take it in his stride.
"Listen, the Cyber-Nanos can be contained now. They can't break down any doors. The bonds of the atoms are too strong now, and they can't make any more of themselves. But they might still be dangerous, and obviously the Cybermen are still dangerous too. But the Cybermen can be easily dealt with later. Our biggest concern are the Cyber-nanos, and I have a plan to deal with them."
Raven suddenly remembered about the gold dust she was supposed to collect from the TARDIS. So leaving the Doctor to discuss things with Captain Jannos she went back into the ward, removed the key from under her broach and stuck it in the lock.
Her hand yanked back as the machine gave her a sharp shock that was strong enough to travel up and down her body. She shuddered and waited for the sensation to stop. It wasn't painful, but it was unpleasant.
She looked at the box and got the sense it was looking at her. "Settled?" she asked it, guessing that was payback for shrinking it in the first place. There was a click and the door opened by itself.
Raven extracted her key and stepped inside. She wasn't gone for long. She immediately stepped back out of the box both gobsmacked and annoyed at what she had just seen. Standing back she looked at the TARDIS again and raised her eyebrow. "Funny!" she said, getting the feeling the TARDIS was laughing at her.
Raven may have shrank the TARDIS outer shell, but that's all she'd shrank. The interior was still it's proper proportions and Raven had just walked out of a console room designed to be lived in by a person over fifty times her size.
"Okay, if you want to play games." Raven said as she activated her powers again. It's time for the interior to match, she could always change it back later. Her arms adopted the correct positions and prepared to cast.
"Oh poppet, could you just hold onto Corentin for a second. Thanks." and without prompting the nosy woman dumped her baby into Ravens arms. This disrupted where her power was going as the focus shifted from the TARDIS to the sleeping baby. Suddenly she felt her energy connect to the babys and she felt herself dive forwards. Into this boys future.
Fire, destruction, screaming. She looked around, buildings were crumbling, explosions were going off everywhere, the ground littered with the bodies of the dead and at the centre of it all was this boy, this man. His face battle scarred and worn. His left eye was missing, instead there was a patch. His body was bulky and covered in scars, his face was bloody and had a look of utter menace on it. This man was a warmonger, he'd found ways to make profit from the blood he spilt and he'd cause so much pain, suffering and unhappiness in the name of profit. He walked freely in the fires of chaos he'd caused. People fled at his foot falls. People were murdered at his very command. Children told stories about him, he was a bogeyman who'd come to get them. He'd destroy millions, lead millions to their deaths, humans and aliens alike, and Raven held this unstoppable demon in her arms at this very moment, as a vulnerable little baby. A vulnerable little baby that could so easily be killed.
Her powers dissipated and she was back in the real world just as the nosy woman plucked the sleeping child from her grasp.
"Thank you kindly, deary." The nosy woman said holding her baby as if it wasn't going to become evil and kill millions. The woman looked at Raven and spotted the expression on her face. "Are you okay, poppet? You look like you've seen a ghost."
Trembling and with the TARDIS forgotten, Raven turned on her heel and ran from the room, and physically bumped into the Doctor as he came to find her.
"Hello, have somewhere you needed to be?" the Doctor asked smiling.
"I..." Raven began, but didn't mention what she'd just seen. The Doctor's smile faded. "...I went into the TARDIS and..." she paused.
"It was much, much bigger on the inside than usual?" the Doctor asked laughing, Raven just nodded. There was something in the Doctors expression that told her he was suspicious, as if that shouldn't cause her to feel such distress. Raven decided to press on with it instead of describing to the Doctor what she'd just seen in that baby's future.
"How do we get the Gold dust? Will it even work at that size?" Raven asked.
"Hardly matters, I know how we can easily deal with the Cybermen, later." The Doctor said mysteriously. "What we need to sort out are the Cyber-nano-bots, they're the first hurdle to get over before we can defeat the Cybermen."
"Okay," Raven said glad to be talking about anything else. "Any ideas?"
"Ever played fetch before?" The Doctor asked, again mysteriously.
"Does this require me to be bait again?" Raven asked, and gave the Doctor a look that said if anyone was going to be bait, then it was going to be him this time.
To Be Continued...
Authors notes: I've established plenty of things that are going to be relevant in later chapters/adventures. ;)