Chapter 21
Everything changed.
The Doctors plan did not involve bait as such, and it was still rather clever. Instead of spelling it out however the Doctor instead led Raven down to his conclusion by providing her with data. As they walked around the ship the Doctor pointed at random objects and told her to eject them into space.
"The Cyber-nano's want to consume matter. They hunger for it because its part of their primary programming." The Doctor explained. "But, we're all too small, our atoms too tightly packed to take apart."
"So we need something that's still its original size?" Raven asked as a couch disappeared through a dark disk that formed beneath it.
"Ah, or something we can return to normal." the Doctor said, pointing at a locker and it too vanished into darkness. "I assume you can return stuff to their normal size?"
"With a snap of my fingers." Raven said confidently.
"So what we do is throw useless stuff off the ship. Chairs, cabinets, tables, televisions, those tedious waiting room magazines. Those ones by the way." He pointed at a table of magazines and they vanished. "You return them to their normal size and the Cyber-Nanos will want to get out and go on a feeding frenzy." The Doctor explained. "Hopefully a few centuries in isolation with no extra resources means they'll eventually run down, if the radiation doesn't get them first."
"And these Nano-bots will just go out their into danger to consume a resource until their deaths?" Raven questioned.
"Its the path your species started walking the moment it became reliant on a carbon chain rich mineral slime for its development. Its just a good thing you stopped before you destroyed yourselves." The Doctor said. Raven didn't know what the Doctor was talking about, but she guessed it meant that he believed the Cyber-nanos would exploit the resource regardless of the dangers.
The Doctor had passed this instruction on to the Captain, and she'd organised her crew so those not engaging the Cybermen were loading none-essential medical equipment into the air locks to be ejected out. The more stuff they had floating around out there, the more 'tasty' it would be for the Cyber-nanos. His words, not hers.
Captain Jannos had also passed out canisters of spray paint to her crew, specifically the paint that contained zinc. The apparatus they used to carry the canisters with was supposed to be used for painting the outside of the ship. Now they were being used as a weapon. It wouldn't kill the Cybermen but it does give them breathing problems, distracting them so they could be bypassed. But that didn't make the Cybermen less of a danger if they got their hands on you.
The Doctor and Raven came to a closed bulkhead and could see into the corridor beyond. A silver liquid was sloshing around in there trying to get out but remained contained. Cybermen appeared at the glass and began pounding on it, but the liquid it tried to move through drastically slowed them down meaning they couldn't punch with enough force to break the door down.
Unfortunately breaking the door had not been its plan. But breaking the glass was. With a heavy impact the glass began to crack. Quickly Raven tried to use her powers to reform the metal of the door and press it together.
But it was too late, the glass was broken just enough to allow a small torrent through before Raven closed the gap.
There was now a silver puddle in the corridor and it was snaking towards them.
"Why am I getting flashes of Deja vu?" the Doctor said. "I'm sure I ran away from a Silver Snake before, and I was in a hospital too."
Raven cast a black wall in front of them as the Silver Liquid suddenly leapt at them and it impacted the barrier. Through her dark energy Raven could usually see the outline of things highlighted in white. On the other side of her barrier she could see the Silver Liquid as what looked like static on a TV. Highlighting the millions of Nano-bots that made up the liquid.
There was a creak as the blast door the liquid had escaped through began to buckle.
"Oh no, they're getting clever." The Doctor said and grabbed Raven by the arm and pulled her away. She was about to teleport them both but she wouldn't have had time to concentrate on a destination as the door burst open and a torrent of Silver Liquid chased them down the corridor.
"What can this stuff do to us, Doctor?" Raven asked.
"I don't know, but I'd rather not stop to find out, do you?" He asked rhetorically.
Raven sensed what was above and below them. More Cybermen and the way they were floating around she guessed they were in a sea of Cyber-nano's too. So they were stuck on this level.
They rounded a corner and had to step over some weird looking coil of steel Raven realised was a discarded paper clip she neglected to shrink. As she looked back she saw the Cyber-Nano's devour it within seconds.
Raven used that to their advantage. Whatever she passed something small that she had previously shrank, she focused and quickly undid the spell and the objects ballooned back up. More paper clips, loose paper, a syringe that had been dropped in the evacuation. The Cyber-Nano's kept getting distracted by the sudden appearance of matter they could break apart.
Watching this made Raven realise that the Doctors plan might work. These Nano's were intent on catching them but the moment it found matter it changed priorities.
Outside a window she could see a countless stream of objects that had been dumped overboard, and quickly she used her powers on a couple to undo her spell. The cabinet and couch suddenly blew up back to enormous proportions compared to the ship and the Nanos were interested at first, before deciding their quarry was a more reasonable target since they couldn't get out of the ship.
"Doctor, wait" Raven said, pulling back on him as they came to an air lock, one that already had its exterior lock jammed open from the opposite side, the interior one was still closed though. They passed and Raven pulled the Doctor to a stop. She then conjured a dark wall across the corridor and the Cyber-Nano's slammed into it, but didn't have the strength to break it down.
Dividing her concentration Raven then activated the door control for the air lock and its inner door hissed open. The atmosphere, or what was left of it was evacuated, taking a sizeable chunk of the Cyber-Nano's with it. Some held on as the atmosphere vanished beyond her dark wall, but it seemed to reconsider and realised it now had access to matter and slinked out the air lock.
With the job done Raven closed the air lock and dropped her shield.
"It worked!" the Doctor said excitedly and clapped his hands together.
"The logic was sound." Raven commented.
"Logic, there's irony" the Doctor commented.
Raven stood in an empty medical ward with the Doctor and concentrated, she waved her hands in magical gestures as she reached out, finding all the floating objects in space and mentally undid her shrinking spell on them, one by one. The ship was now surrounded by objects that looked far too big. Chairs, lamps, pads, computers, TV's, beds, papers, magazines.
"I hope the local council doesn't discover this." the Doctor said, "The littering fine would cripple me." He joked.
"The Cybermen know somethings up." Captain Jannos said through a wall communicator.
"They're not stupid," the Doctor said, "They'll know what we're doing even if they can't work out how we're doing it."
"They're damaging the air locks, I guess to keep them closed." Captain Jannos said.
"They wanted to recover these Nanos, they're not about to let them go now." The Doctor commented as Raven undid the spell on a dish and a spoon in the void outside.
Suddenly she sensed something, below.
Without thinking and before she'd even contemplated what was about to happen she screamed "Doctor, move!" and she pushed him aside and he fell over. An arm punched up through the floor and grabbed Raven's ankle. It held on so tight she thought it'd break it, and what felt like a million volts went straight through her body from the arm. The Doctor looked at her in horror from the floor as Raven screamed.
"You are the Doctor." Said the voice of a Cyberman. It was the first thing to re-enter Ravens consciousness.
"Indeed, I am." the Doctor said. "You must be the Cyber-leader, I presume?"
"You presume correct, Doctor."
Raven was aware they had been moved. She was also aware there were several Cybermen around both her and the Doctor. Pretending to still be unconscious Raven focused and continued to undo the spells on the objects outside. But she was ready in case the Cybermen tried something, and she half listened to the Doctor's conversation.
"I do not understand how you have reduced everything, Doctor." The Cyber-leader said. "But logic dictates it has something to do with you."
"A Cyberman making assumptions, how illogical of you." the Doctor mocked.
"It is a logical assumption given your species level of technology." the Cyber-leader said. "You will undo this alteration to the ship and ourselves."
"Can't, sorry." The Doctor said, "because I didn't do it." He sounded like he was choosing his words carefully.
"That... is a truthful response." Though the Cyber-leader's voice was emotionless it sounded surprised.
"Do you want to know how it was done?" the Doctor asked mysteriously, the Cybermen didn't speak as Raven sensed the Doctor pull a playing card from up his sleeve, but did it so quickly it looked like it had just appeared. "It was magic."
"That... is a truthful response?" the Cyber-leader questioned. "Impossible, illogical, you are lying or delusional."
Keep undoing the spell on the things outside Raven. The Doctor sent her telepathically. He didn't need to tell her, she was already doing it.
"You're just showing your limited imagination again." the Doctor commented.
"Imagination is irrelevant." The Cyber-leader said, "You still have the technology to undo this change."
"And if I don't, you'll kill me, or my companion?" the Doctor finished, "I've had these conversations before. I know how they end. I can read you all like a book. I know, for example, we're going to get into another debate about emotions and 'how useless they are and impair the logical circuits, blah, blah, blah.'"
"You still stand in our way, Doctor. Emotions cause nothing but pain to other creatures. It is better that they be removed." the Cyber-leader said.
"In all my years I never thought I'd hear your mission statement be put across to sound angelic." the Doctor laughed. "You're like a cult who says 'We'll protect you from the scary world outside. Join us and you won't have to think for yourselves. Learn our ways and be smug and superior only without actually having the capacity to feel it. Spread the good word and those who disagree? Convert them or cut them out of your life. You'll feel safe with us because you'll learn to fear and hate everything outside of us."
"We do not hate, we do not fear." the Cyber-leader argued.
"Yes, you do, or you'd recognise you could just go off, find your own little world. Live in peace and leave everyone else alone. But you see them as an automatic threat to you." the Doctor commented.
"We do not hate." the Cyber-leader insisted. "Hate is an emotion. Our motives are logical."
"They are a perversion of the beautiful thing that is 'logic,'" the Doctor argued back, "logic is a robust way of analysing data, making decisions that will provide the best results. But logic only works based on your initial assumptions about the world. If they're wrong then you're picking 'A' solution, not the 'best' solution. Don't you see, your logic is inherently flawed because you assume the universe outside is a threat to you. But it doesn't have to be." The Doctor reasoned. "Let me take you all away in the TARDIS. I'll find you a planet you can live on. Build a society and live forever in peace. Make it known that you have abandoned your quest to convert the unlike. There is room enough in the universe for everyone, and I think everyone can truly get along and be at peace, even with the Cybermen."
Raven felt quite moved by that speech and she risked opening her left eye a crack just to view the Cyber-leader. She could tell which one it was because its handles on its head were black. It looked like it was considering the Doctors words.
"Unacceptable, all organic life in the universe must become Cybermen." it announced. The Doctor looked crestfallen.
"You know I'm starting to see you less like a machine species and more like a virus." the Doctor commented.
"This debate is over." the Cyber-leader stated.
"And you give me the same pre-programmed responses." the Doctor sighed, "I might as well talk to a video game NPC, at least they emulate emotions."
"Your attempts at mockery do not concern us." the Cyber-leader said. "Tell us how the ship was reduced."
"Oh, that was little Rae-rae here." The Doctor said. Raven gritted her teeth under her lips. "She's a magician, a sorceress, a spell caster. Name her what you like, she caused all this herself. She's half demon you see." What was he playing at?
"Your words are truthful. But impossible, demons do not exist."
"Really? Some would say I'm talking to one." the Doctor joked, but the Cyberman reached forward and grabbed the Doctors arms. The Cyber-leader seemed to stair into the Doctors face before it announced. "Kill her."
And another Cyberman moved to do the deed.
"NO!" the Doctor shouted.
"You are proof." the Cyber-leader said.
"Of?" the Doctor asked.
"That emotions manipulate you."
"Yet I have much more of a life than you do." The Doctor challenged. "Sure there is pain, suffering, emotional deep wells of darkness. But they're what make love, friendship, happiness, all that more special. If we wanted only the positives but could avoid the negatives then life would be mind numbing, meaninglessness and boredom."
"Cease this prattle!" the Cyber-leader insisted.
What was the Doctor doing by trying to engage the Cyber-leader in another debate. It was clearly a stubborn block-head. Unless he was doing what Raven had been doing earlier. Keeping it talking.
What did the Doctor want her to do? She reached out, all the junk outside was at its normal size. So... the Nano's just needed a way to get out. A door way of some kind.
Raven reached out and sensed where she was in relation to the ship. All the air-lock doors were indeed closed. The Cybermen had destroyed the panels that allowed them to open. But the mechanisms were still intact. If she focused she could open them and that would open up the ship to space outside and let the Cyber-Nanos get to their 'dinner'. She didn't need to open all of them, just the ones where the Cybermen and Cyber-nanos were collected in, or else the people who were still alive would also get sucked out or be killed when the atmosphere leaked away.
The downside to this was that Raven and the Doctor would also be affected by the loss of pressure and breathable atmosphere. But the Doctor and the Cybermen were fast running out of words to exchange.
Here goes nothing. She reached out and opened the air-lock door in their sector.
The room shuddered and began to shake as the atmosphere raged out through the open door. With the hull breached she was hoping the Cyber-nanos were rushing out to escape into the blackness of space.
The Cybermen were confused and looked around for the source of the shuddering. Raven felt the negative pressure wave coming at them. She quickly sat up on the table they'd put her on. Jumped to her feet, activated her powers to root her to this spot and grabbed the Doctor with her power and pulled him towards her, backwards. He impacted her and she wrapped her arms around his midsection as the negative pressure wave ripped the door of the room open and the Cybermen in the room were ripped off their feet an they rushed out the door.
Raven held her breath.
Don't worry about me. The Doctor told her. I have a respiratory by-pass system. I can survive a long time without oxygen.
Did you make that up? Raven asked, telepathically.
Not this time. The Doctor answered.
What do you mean 'this time?
Raven's fingers slipped and the Doctor was pulled from her grasp. He reached back and she caught his hand in her own. But his fingers were slipping from hers! She couldn't concentrate to help him. He was falling away!
Their fingers parted and the Doctor raced back, through the door and towards the open air-lock. Unless he could grab onto something he was a dead man!
Raven reached up to her mouth and held her mouth and nose closed. She also closed her eyes as she felt the liquid on her body and eyes began to boil away without an atmosphere to keep it liquid.
I'll be fine. The Doctor still told her telepathically. Open the other air-locks. Flush the Cyber-nanos out of the other sectors.
What about you?! Raven sent back.
This is our one chance to get rid of the Nano's. I've survived worse. Do it!
Raven reached out, found other air-locks and released their seals. She held her breath as the loss of air meant she couldn't hear anything anymore. The place was deadly silent, so silent she could hear the blood rushing in her ear drums.
That should do it. Close the air locks, now! The Doctor said, and Raven reached out to each air-lock and forced them all to close again. One stubbornly refused to move, so she used her powers to take both doors and drag them shut herself.
She dropped to her knees. Her lungs burnt to take a breath, but she had to wait until the atmosphere returned. The burning sensation on her skin from the evaporating moisture was cooled by a strong breeze as the atmosphere normalised, and she gratefully took a great, big lung full of it.
She wondered if all the Cyber-nanos were outside as she got up and went to find the Doctor. She could sense the objects outside, they were drastically getting eaten by the Cyber-nanos that foolishly escaped the ship and were now being left behind as the ship moved on, away from them, faster than they could ever hope to catch up.
They were already a safe distance away from them. She could return the ship to normal and not worry about the Cyber-nanos catching up to eat their way back inside.
As she left the room that the Cybermen had called a base, suddenly a silver hand reached out, grabbed her neck and lifted her up off the floor.
Unfortunately the Cybermen were not sucked out with the Nanos, they were still onboard and she was surrounded by an army them.
"We must survive." the Cyber-leader said "We must survive!"
Raven felt like her neck was about to snap when in a panic she did the only thing she could think of. Undo the spell on the ship.
The space around her suddenly expanded many times. The Cybermen around her were forced further away as the floor expanded. But that didn't make the Cyber-leader let go of her throat. That came with the next spell she undid. Her own.
It felt like she was a spring uncoiling as her form popped back to its proper size. Her legs caught the floor and she landed on her back. The Cyber-leader released his grip on her neck as it suddenly expanded. She took a deep breath as she rubbed her neck.
"We must survive, we must survive," said a squeaky voice. Standing on her stomach was a mini-Cyber-leader, no bigger than her thumb. It reached out for her again as if it could still inflict damage to her. It was kind of cute that it thought that, she guessed.
She plucked the Cyberman from her stomach and flicked it away down the corridor as she got to her feet. The Cyberman army was still here but they were more like small wind-up toys, not the scary giants she'd seen them as before. They advanced on her still convinced they could pose a threat to her. They probably could. They could probably overpower her with sheer numbers. She guessed that even at their size they were incredibly strong and could probably damage her if they got too close. Unfortunately for them, Raven had no intention of letting these tiny terrors get any closer.
Activating her powers, Raven gathered them all up into a ball in the air, including the Cyber-leader and funnelled them towards a chute marked 'waste disposal.' The draw opened with her powers, the mini-Cybermen were dumped in, the draw closed, and the disposal activated, blasting them out into space.
Raven watched out the window as they floated away, and couldn't help herself from holding up her hand and sarcastically waving goodbye to them.
The Doctor? Where was the Doctor?
She walked down the corridor, towards the air-lock. She took her steps carefully in case she stood on anything or anyone she wasn't supposed to. She was the only normal sized person on this ship at the moment, everyone else was doll sized.
She followed the Doctors signature in the ether. She found herself returning to the area where the Cybermen caught them. There was a hole in the floor leading to a lower level. Across from that, at an air lock, it looked like the panel had been ripped out. Probably the Cybermens doing.
Dangling from the loose wires was a small creature tangled up in them. The Doctor must've grabbed onto the panel as the atmosphere evacuated, got his hands tangled up in the wires and pulled off the floor when the ship expanded back to normal. The Doctor held on for dear life as it would be quite a fall from his perspective if he let go.
He spoke, but his voice was so high pitched she nearly didn't understand it. She had to kneel down and bring her head closer to understand him.
"Rae-Rae." the tiny figure called "Well done. Do you mind helping me? I've already died once falling off a radio telescope. It'd be a tad embarrassing if I went out like this."
Raven produced a small black disk for the Doctor to land on so he could let go.
"Thank you." the Doctor said, dusting himself down before looking up at Raven. "Aren't you going to undo this spell?"
"I don't know." Raven said, a smile crossing her face. "I prefer you like this, its much more peaceful, and you can't get into any trouble."
"Rae-Rae" the Doctor said sternly, Raven weakly chuckled, perhaps a little too darkly.
"Okay. I'll think about it, but only under one condition." she said, bringing him up to her face to show she was serious, and she spelt her demand out to him. "Stop. Calling. Me. Rae-Rae."
Following the aftermath Raven had found and returned everyone else on the ship back to their normal sizes, and most of the objects including the TARDIS. Just to annoy the Doctor she actually left him as the last thing she returned to normal. She liked annoying him a little. She didn't know why but it made her feel good.
The Cybermen were now the only things left in a diminished state, barely the size of a human finger. They were still immensely strong and could break the bones in your hands as some of the crew members found to their dismay. They all chanted the same defeated statement. "We must survive! We must survive!"
The ships cleaning droids soon scooped them all up in their hoppers and dumped them out the airlocks. Hopefully no passing space craft comes upon them and mistakes the tiny terrors for toys.
A few stranglers retreated into some cubby holes in the ship, only to be hunted by the rats.
As Raven watched the small silver soldiers floating around out there she didn't want to think that most of them would've been patients onboard this ship the Cybermen had forcibly converted. That thought kind of made their victory hollow.
Patients and doctors all thanked and congratulated the Doctor and Raven, and indeed the crew, for helping to save them, and Raven actually felt herself blushing at the admiration. It still just didn't feel right to her that a monster would be celebrated for saving life, yet she liked it. But outwardly she wasn't showing it, she looked as unmoved as ever.
As the Doctor raced around checking that there were no nasty surprises left over from the Cybermen or the Cyber-nanos, Raven had peeled off with the excuse she was returning to the TARDIS. But that's not where she was going. She had some business to take care of.
The nosy woman laid her child in a crib for the night before retiring to her own bed, the lights went out and the mother and baby slept soundly.
Emerging from the shadows, Raven hovered half a meter off the floor through the silent night like a ghost, and approached the crib. The young boy, the young Corentin, the prelude to evil, lay in his crib. But he was wide awake, looking this way and that. He wasn't crying for his mothers attention, he appeared to be looking around as if trying to explore this new world he was in, and Raven was going to end it.
No, none of this magic rubbish that desensitises you to the deed. Said a voice in her head. If you must kill this child, put your hands around its neck and do the deed yourself.
She reached down and picked up the baby. Its blue eyes focused on her, though she knew it wasn't old enough to see her, it could sense her. She held it like a sack and stared into its big blue eyes as it stared up into her big, purple ones.
Raven reached up with her free hand and placed it around the infants neck. Holding it between her thumb and forefinger. All she had to do was squeeze and she'd be saving the future from this terrible evil before it even knew what life was. Before it could become evil.
The baby's eyes began to water as if it knew what was about to happen to it. It looked like it was pleading, as if those eyes were asking her, 'Why? What have I done to deserve this? What did I ever do to you?' it didn't start crying out loud like she expected the baby to, as if it was too scared of her to even whimper. Good, it's good that this evil child fears her.
Just close your fingers and this evil dies. She told herself. Just touch these two wires together. What wires? She wasn't holding any wires.
She hesitated, she was unsure if she should do this. It just felt wrong somehow.
Just do it! Her mind commanded of her. Close your eyes, send the signal to your fingers, do it quickly, don't think. Crush this infants neck. Save the future! Save those people, like you saved people today. Do it!
Raven didn't know how long she held this babies neck for, preparing to snap it. They just stared at each other, monster against monster. She gripped the neck more firmly thinking of all the dead people he'd cause, all the people she'd save and... and... and she saw her own reflection in its dark pupils and she looked through Corentins eyes and back into her own.
"I'm sorry," she told it, genuinely she was, thinking that would make it better, but still her hands refused to do the deed.
Her grip loosened, and her arm dropped away and instead moved to help her support the child in her arms.
She couldn't do it. She just couldn't do it. She was a monster, she should be capable, but as she looked into this child's eyes it was as if something pulled the brakes on.
She could smash it into the floor and kill it that way. But again, her arms refused to do the simple movement.
Tears started to flow down the baby's face and Raven felt a wetness in her eyes too. But she refused to let a single tear escape her.
She began to tremble as she raised this little monster up to her face, still supporting it in her arms like a mother would. She placed her forehead against Corentins. Their wet eyes met and stared into each others. She couldn't kill it, but she pushed something into its mind, a simple thought, one that would echo throughout his brain all his life. She spoke the words as she implanted them. "Don't make me regret this choice... please" she said, her emotionless voice cracking with sorrow. She lowered the child so her lips pressed against his forehead and she said both verbally and into his mind, "Please. 'Try' to be good."
Raven was now in the bowels of the ship having teleported there after replacing Coretin back in his crib. The baby smiled at her as Raven cast a spell to send it into a peaceful sleep. He didn't know the horrors he might unleash, but then he was not responsible for actions he hadn't committed yet any more than Raven was.
Raven had teleported herself somewhere where she could be by herself to sort her thoughts out. She was sitting on the floor, curled up and contemplating. She felt weirdly responsible for the deaths of all those people Corentin might cause, because she had the opportunity to kill it for good. But instead she hoped she had influenced the boy so he grew up into a less evil creature. She wanted to look into his future again to see if she changed anything. But she feared she wouldn't have changed a thing. Better if she didn't know.
Was this how the Doctor felt about her? He had let her live despite the prophecy's and forecast dangers about her. He had suggested they nurture her into someone good, instead of a loyal daughter of Trigon.
That rant the Doctor had shouted at her, his words. She understood them now on a level she didn't before. The Doctor had just to touch to wires together to end a great evil in the universe before it arose, he had refused. She understood now why he did it, and it upset her even more because it made her realise how close she had come to killing an innocent, defenceless child.
"I can't." Raven said fighting back the tears, answering the Doctors question again. If you knew the future and saw a child you'd know would grow up totally evil. Could you kill that child? "No, no I can't! I can't!" she held her head tightly in her hands and released a trembling sigh. She wasn't a monster, but she wasn't human either. What was she? How the hell should she act?
Wait. Was there another presence she could sense? In her mind?!
Suspicion crept across her face as she asked one simple question in her mind.
Doctor, are you still connected to me? Raven asked, not expecting an answer.
"No." said a voice that quickly vanished.
Ravens face went red with rage. She stood up and shouted into the corridor, a panel bursting out as power escaped with her rage.
"Doctor! Where the hell are you?! You are so dead! I mean it this time, and don't think for one second I'll allow you to regenerate!"
As Raven entered the TARDIS she found the Doctor at the controls. He looked like he was practically glowing with pride as she approached. Raven's temper had simmered down and she no longer wanted to kill him, though she now wondered if it was worth the effort to shrink him again.
She got the feeling this was going to be a long road of the Doctor annoying her, she annoyed the Doctor, the Doctor annoyed her in retaliation, she annoyed him in retaliation and so on, and so on. Well, if it meant war, then war they will have.
"I'm proud of you." the Doctor said.
"Save it!" Raven shot back at him. She felt betrayed that the Doctor still remained connected to her mind after she had severed the connection from her end. But weirdly she also felt glad, because the Doctor probably saw what she saw and felt what she'd felt and he knew she had the chance to kill an evil before it even knew what evil was, but couldn't. It made her feel better, but it didn't make her like it any better.
"I've severed my side of the link now." the Doctor said, Raven looked away. She didn't know if she hated the harsh Doctor or this proud Doctor more. "I honestly didn't know it was still active. It was only after I sensed a dark cloud that I realised."
"I don't want to talk about it, please, Doctor." she felt ashamed of herself for even attempting it in the first place.
"You know, it was lucky we landed on that ship when we did." the Doctor said turning back to the console, "How did you set the coordinates to land us inside that ship while it was travelling through hyperspace? I can't even do that."
"You must do." Raven insisted, "I..." but she hesitated. She didn't want the Doctor to know she'd been inside his mind, because if anything it made his intrusion into her thoughts a moment ago feel more like getting even.
"I guess the TARDIS got lucky and landed us in exactly the right place and time to find a specialist of Time Lord biology in the year 21,963." The Doctor said, "It wasn't a 'fast return' journey, I've never been there before."
This was making more questions rise in Ravens head, but if she asked them she knew she'd have to admit her crime. So she stayed silent.
"Something must've drawn us to that ship perhaps?" the Doctor guessed incorrectly.
"Yeah, I guess." Raven added.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions here." the Doctor rested his hand on his chin as he thought. "Like who brought those Cybermen onboard, how did they get them past security screenings? For what purpose? What reward? and so on."
"Like what attacked you in here?" Raven asked, trying to ask a more pressing question, but the Doctor just nodded telling her, "exactly!"
"Does it matter?" Raven asked.
"Possibly not. I just don't like loose ends. Especially in TV shows. I hate when they leave plot threads like this dangling, it really brings you out of the story. Unless they get tied up satisfactorily in a later episode, not rushed, or cobbled together like some that just get lost in the mystery they're trying to build."
Raven rolled her eyes as the Doctor mumbled about nothing in general. She moved to go back to her room when the Doctor snapped his fingers to get her attention.
"Raven, where do you think you're going, young lady?" he said, addressing her like a child.
"To my room." She said simply.
"Come here." the Doctor said hooking his finger in a 'come over here' motion. Raven found herself obeying and with the Doctor still looking at the console he held out his hand towards her. "Give me your hand."
She huffed and placed her right hand in the Doctors waiting one. He felt cold. His fingers closed over her fingers before he sharply moved her hand over to a switch on the console, the take off lever, and the Doctor placed her hand on it before removing his hand from hers and taking a step back.
He motioned for her to set the TARDIS going. This was clearly a symbolic gesture. Pull the lever and set the TARDIS out on the next adventure. By pulling this lever she wasn't just a guest in the Doctors home, not just a stowaway, not just some creature contained within the ship, not anymore. Pull this lever and everything changes, and she so did want everything to change.
Her life had changed so much in just a few short days. She'd been content to live in the TARDIS. No, not live, she'd never truly 'lived', she just existed. But in the past few days, the things she had seen, what she had felt, the loss, the stress, the panic, the blood pumping through her system, the exhilaration of survival, the thrills, the danger. Was this what it meant to feel 'alive'? Today, for the first time in her life... she had 'lived'.
She removed her hand from the control. The TARDIS still motionless and she looked at the Doctor with her staring, blank expression and slight frown.
The Doctor looked a little crest fallen and he moved to pull the lever himself. But before he could lay a finger on it the lever was quickly pulled down, it was covered in black energy.
The floor shuddered and a loud thud echoed throughout the machine from the Time Rotor as the TARDIS disconnected from reality and began to take off. "Okay, Doctor. I'll play your little games. For now." She said. She was unaware that, her mouth given him a very subtle smile, when she noticed it she wiped it off and clarified her decision to him. "You seem to have a habit of getting into trouble. You need someone to watch over you." She paused before adding. "I just need you to fly the TARDIS, and keep my home safe. Nothing more." LIAR. Her mind declared. SHUT UP!
The Doctor didn't look convinced. She hated him when he looked like that, it was as if he could see straight through her. She'd suspect he was inside her head again if it wasn't for the fact that the Doctor, her Doctor, had always been like this.
He moved around the console flipping switches and turning dials as the crystals of the Time Rotor began rising up and down, joining together and separating with a wheezing, groaning as they moved.
From now on, everything changed; and Raven didn't know how to feel about that.
The dark blue Police Box wheezed and groaned with a blue light from its lamp. The wheezes and groans somehow sounded like the box was moving, but it didn't, it just faded away, out of Time and Space, into the sea of the Time Vortex. But it hadn't gone unnoticed. Someone was watching from the shadows.
The figure smiled with delight as it understood what it had just witnessed, and more importantly, 'who' it had just witnessed. Its smile became broader as dark plans were starting to form in its head.
To Be Continued...
Authors notes: So ends another adventure for them. I have an idea for another adventure in a more historical setting but I'll have to write it later after I've figured some of the plot details out.
Special thanks for making it this far, and thanks to all of you who left reviews and feedback. You guys are fantastic!
I think I've broken my own rule and made a character from another franchise the Doctors companion. Whoops...
To be fair, with Raven I kind of think its working. Her grumpy nature and the 8th Doctors playfulness just seem to bounce off each other, almost like a playful version of what would later develop into Beastboy and Ravens relationship but on a different wavelength.
I've just remembered there was an episode where Raven finds a demon trapped inside a book who sounds similar to the 8th Doctor. *shrugs* who's to say the demon in the book didn't pick 'that voice' because it was similar to a voice she trusted in her past? I.e. the 8th Doctor. ;) Yes, I know, I'm making it up, but in my head cannon relating to this story, that's what it meant.
[EDITS] 29/11/2018. I changed the way Raven accepts the Doctors offer to travel in the TARDIS. The change is quite subtle but alters the feel of the scene. So instead of accepting it outright because she wants to, she accepts it with the air that she's just indulging him like a sister would a brother. Originally her acceptance felt too 'traditional companion' which is not what I'm going for. She is supposed to be 'the reluctant companion' after all. ;)