Doctor Who, Lost Memories: Thrill Seeker [fireandblood & Villain]

Started by fireandblood, January 07, 2013, 07:27:02 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

fireandblood

The day was hot. Then again, Robin hadn't experienced one day of this summer in Orlando that had been cold. She reached up and scratched at the hat that was perched and pinned on top of her short blonde curls. It was just making her even hotter, causing a bead of sweat to drip down her neck slowly. Her glasses had begun to slip down her nose, and she made a mental note to invest in the contact industry very soon. Working at Universal Studios in the summer was obviously going to be warm and monotonous, and Robin wanted to make it as easy on herself as possible.

Of course, the Butterbeer stand had been immensely popular all day. The lines had hardly gone down at all. Robin's right arm was getting tired of pulling down the lever to get the golden, icy mixture to pour into the cups of the eager customers. She had had two glasses of the stuff herself to try and cool down, but the relief it gave her was temporary and she hardly had time to drink it anyway. A sigh escaped her as she filled yet another souvenir cup with the sugary beverage. She then transferred it with a falsely cheerful smile to a fat little boy who had already been to the little stand four times that day.

It was times like these that she had to remember what she was there for. College at the University of Florida was expensive, and the scholarships that were supposed to pay for all of her tuition were hardly covering even half anymore. This job would bring a relatively good amount of money into her possession, and along with what her parents were sending her she might be able to live her junior year comfortably. A more genuine smile touched her lips as she thought of school, and friends, and everything she was working for.

Suddenly, a strange, foreign thought entered her head. She had been getting these a lot lately; it seemed as though thoughts or images from outside of her were being projected into her mind. Just yesterday, she had seen a credit card that wasn't hers, and the thought seemed tinged with worry. A woman had then stepped up to the front of the line, fidgeting nervously, and had ordered a butterbeer for her daughter. When Robin had run her card, it looked eerily similar to the one she had seen in her mind... And the card had been rejected due to insufficient funds. These things had been happening for two years now, but only recently they had begun to increase in frequency.

What she saw this time seemed to be a set of two things that seemed odd paired together: a rose and a blue box. Robin's head snapped to the left, and saw perhaps the strangest thing she had ever seen. It was common for people to dress up when traveling to the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter," but usually they were wearing some garb that pertained to the book series upon which the park was based. This man, however... He was wearing a strange coat-type thing (which she couldn't imagine wearing in this heat), some pants rolled up to his knees, a bolo tie, and sandals. His hair was a sandy blonde and it fell to almost his shoulders. He looked young, perhaps in his thirties... But then he looked toward Robin and she gasped. His golden eyes seemed old, timeless, and sad. So sad and ageless that she couldn't help but stare and wonder at the things this man had seen.

"Um... Miss..." A voice from behind her had spoken, and her focus returned to the task at hand. The butterbeer she had been pouring was overflowing, running all over the cart and her hands. How strange... She hadn't even noticed. She mumbled a curse under her breath and heard a laugh from her left.

"I guess I'm coming at just the right time," Paul said with a crooked smile. "The heat's getting to your head. We're switching - you've got the sim." The sim was the simulation ride, the one in which the audience "participated" in a Quidditch match. "Be warned though... Thing's been glitching all morning. They'll probably have you in there fixing it, Miss Engineering Major." Paul was the one friend Robin had made at Universal. The rest of the staff seemed stiff and unfriendly to her, so she kept to herself for the most part.

"Thank you so much," Robin said, giving Paul a quick hug. Her voice had a slightly Southern drawl to it. "I don't care about fixing the ride as long as I'm inside. Let me know if you need anything." And with that, she was off, heading toward the simulator. After a thought, she glanced back toward where the strange man had been a moment earlier. He was gone, seemingly disappeared. Shrugging, Robin arrived at the front entrance and relieved the girl there to check the fast passes.

Her radio buzzed a few moments later.

"Robin, we need you in the back," a garbled voice said. She replied her affirmative and walked around to the back of the ride, opening the door and letting the cool air wash over her for a moment. Then she found the engineer, and approached him.

There was something... Off. She couldn't really tell what it was but she knew that the machinery didn't look right.

Villain

The engineer that Robin approached was named Charlie. He was a plump man with thirty years of engineering experience under his belt and a loving family waiting for him at home. He had been an asset to the company and had worked with them for a long time, so long in fact that it was obvious that he was due for a promotion.

But, poor Charlie didn't have very long to live, for the creature eating away inside of him was almost done with him and soon he would burn up as it forced itself out of his body.

He knew this, but still he continued to modify the ride to the creatures instructions. He had tried resisting it, but that just caused terrible pain to erupt inside his skull. There was no use fighting it at all. All he could do was look sad and finish the evil work that creature had set him to do.

The frown on his face grew even glummer as Robin approached. He had been hoping that he could have made the modifications quickly and installed the strange circuits and glowing orbs without anyone noticing, but he had been too slow and now the poor girl would have to suffer for it.

"I'm so sorry," He whimpered before he turned towards the girl. "I want you to know how sorry I reall-"

Charlie burst into blue fire and sparks before he could finish his sentence. Bolts of power arced from his body and hit the machinery behind him. The mechanics burst to life and began to crackle with electricity. The machine whined and roared before metal wires shot out from the simulator at Robin like cobra's.

fireandblood

She had thrown Charlie a smile as she approached. He was a likable man, plump and kind if a bit quiet. Robin thought that if anyone could have fixed the glitch it would have been Charlie, but she guessed he needed a set of fresh eyes to take a look. As she examined the machinery, she finally found what was wrong. There were... extra parts. Orbs that seemed much too advanced for the type of equipment used on this ride. And wires... They twisted around each other like snakes, almost seeming alive...

Robin looked at Charlie quizzically and had opened her mouth to ask a question when the older man spoke. Sorry? she thought in puzzlement, moments before he seemed to explode. Instinctively, Robin leapt backward with a shout as the jets of fire shot from his body. As the electricity hit the machinery, it jolted to life, and... There were things reaching toward her. Impossible things.

Her mouth fell open as the wires stretched menacingly in her direction. Her feet carried her slowly backward, and her mind was whirring and trying to figure out what to do. Noticing a piece of metal pipe lying against the wall to her right, she picked it up and brandished it at her pursuer.

"Back!" she yelled, feeling absurd. She was yelling at wires, for God's sake. The thing took no heed and instead continued its advance, quickening the pace. Robin whipped her pipe at it and landed a solid smack, and the wires retreated, almost seeming to emit some kind of squeal.

"Help!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "Someone please, help!"

Villain

The wires retreated back to the machine like a wounded animal, but then there were some clunking and crackling sounds followed by a big flash of blue light as electricity zigzagged over the circuits. The machine opened like a mouth of jagged metal teeth and larger coils of wire, the size of pythons, began to stretch out again, each one ending with a sparking blue skull of pure power. It was obvious that one touch from the wires would turn Robin to cinders, just like the remains of Charlie, that lay scattered on the ground in various pieces.

The machine began wailing as the tendrils stretched out. For a moment Robin would swear that she could hear whispering amongst the ungodly noises of the metal nightmare, but as the wires crept closer that thought would no longer matter. Soon she would be engulfed by the wires and every cell in her body would be hit with millions of volts of pure death.

Just a little closer and it would all be over...

Robin would see a flash of deep blue and a mop of blonde wavy hair. The strange man from earlier was in front of her with one hand pushing her back and another outstretched before him, holding some odd metal device with a green light bulb on the end of it. The skull wires reared their fearsome heads and let out a screech of outrage.

"DoCtoR...!" they roared with voices louder than thunder, but the man didn't let that stop him from what he was about to do next. He held the device high before him and narrowed his golden eyes on the monsters before shouting....

"Expecto Patronum!" He pressed a button on the device and it let out a whirring sound that could just be heard over the sparks and clangs. The creatures shrieked as the machine they spawned from began to let out loud bangs like a machine gun. The tendrils writhed in the air, screeching in agony, but the man didn't celebrate his victory. Instead he turned, grabbed Robin by the wrist and ran as fast as he could away from the giant smoking mess.

"That was amazing!" the man shouting back to Robin, only now would she realise that he was laughing while they ran. "I have wanted to say that for such a long time! Daniel Radcliffe eat your heart out!"

fireandblood

As the living tendrils of wire came toward her, Robin was certain that she was going to die. She saw her life, short but relatively good, flashing before her in a very quick montage of images, smells, and sounds. At the same time, she saw these horrors advancing, the skulls leering at her almost obscenely. At least it will be fast, she thought, closing her eyes.

Then, she caught the foreign thought again - a rose and a box. Her eyes flew open to see the man from before whirling in front of her and pushing her back almost roughly. She seemed to hear the wires hiss "DOCTOR!" before... The man pulled out a strange piece of metal and brandished it at the monster. It had some sort of green thing on the end, and Robin felt confused.

"Expecto Patronum!" The man screamed as he pressed a button on his... thingy. If Robin though she had felt confused before, it was nothing compared to what she felt after he uttered this. The spell, or whatever it was, did seem to work. The things crackled, sputtered, and fell to the floor. Robin opened her mouth to ask a question but was interrupted by the man grabbing her and pulling her along with him. She seemed to be getting interrupted a lot this afternoon.

Then he was shouting again, about how this was amazing and he'd wanted to say that... Robin did have to admit that she was stunned that the Harry Potter spell had actually done something to the machine... She thought it was perhaps not the words but just the device that had made the monster fall. This man was so... odd... so strange... She wouldn't put it past him to just shout the words for fun. This was evidenced by the fact that he was actually laughing as they ran.

"Excuse me," she yelled at him, though she didn't slow, "But who the hell are you? And what was that thing?"

Villain

The mad man with the bizarre device and an anorak didn't answer at first, he just kept pulling Robin along until eventually they were out in the open, mingling amongst the busy and excited crowds of Universal Studios. He drew to a stop once they were in the clear and leaned on a nearby wall to catch his breath. Sweat was running down his face while he panted heavily, but his bright grin still hadn't disappeared.

"Wow, when did running get so hard?" he asked between pants before turning to Robin and gazing over her. When he met her eyes he gazed at her in confusion, as if her nose had suddenly turned lime green. The way he stared was a little unsettling. His caramel eyes didn't look so sweet and pleasant when he stared with such intensity, instead they looked molten and angry, but also sad and cold. The look faded and the man let out a heavy sigh before sliding down the wall and taking a seat on the ground.

"To answer your question that thing was an alien," the man huffed before shrugging. "Nothing much, just a plasmic life form bonded with oxygen-free copper wiring with modified electrical conductors and stabilizers. Its child's play really. Except imagine that the child is a super intelligent alien that is able to fuse with a theme park ride and turn it into a death machine capable of erasing life with one touch."

He looked up at Robin and gave her a pearly grin that seemed to melt away all the exhaustion and stress that he had worn on his face. The smile was so warm and genuine that it almost seemed to make the day feel a little brighter.

"I'm the Doctor, Robin. And I'm willing to answer a lot of questions from you that I've asked been asked hundreds of times, but I was wondering if you could answer one for me first," he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a leather bound ID. He flipped it open and held it up for the girl to see. "Robin. How on earth did you contact me?" he asked.

The piece of paper that he held to Robin's face was blank, but most people who gazed at the paper would see the drawing of a rose followed by the words; 'Help me Doctor, I'm being attacked in Universal Studios. Robin x', but Robin barely saw any of that. When she looked at the paper the message flickered in and out of existence, becoming more like a ball of squiggly lines rather than a message.

fireandblood

Robin had once again started to say something when the man made the comment about running, but this time, it was his stare that interrupted her. His eyes had gone hot, angry, sad, and unsettling all at once. It made her feel as though he was peering into her very mind, trying to unlock some memory. At the same time, his eyes held an ancient grief, one that seemed to say that he was carrying the weight of... not the world, but the universe, on his shoulders. It made Robin sad too, and she had to look away after a moment.

Then, however, he broke his stare and slid down the wall to sit on the ground. He began to spew some facts about aliens fusing with copper wires... Robin thought about it for a moment and supposed that, were aliens real, it would be logical from a certain standpoint that some of them would be able to fuse themselves into electric wiring. Oxygen-free... It made... Not exactly sense, but it seemed plausible.

The Doctor. A thrill went through her as he spoke her name. How had he known? They hadn't precisely had time to have introductions, since he had only just whisked her away from an alien that was threatening her life.

"How did you contact me?" It was a strange question; she hadn't been able to really send a letter or something, after all. The man held a paper up for her to look at, but no matter how hard she squinted at it, all it seemed to be was a bunch of squiggly lines. Her eyes narrowed.

"Very funny," she said, crossing her arms. "I don't know who put you up to this, Doctor, but joke's over. There's a funny thing about that paper - it doesn't say anything. That was a very convincing show back there, I applaud you, but now I think it's time for you to go." Again, the image of the blue box flashed across her vision, and she shook her head in annoyance. Placing her hands on her hips, she stared down at the odd man, wondering why on earth he had played this trick on her.

"Nice touch with the costume," she added as an afterthought. "You had me convinced for a minute... I've never seen anyone wearing an anorak in the summer. Not even English people."

Villain

"Really?" the Doctor asked with surprise. "The British wear anoraks all the time during the summer. How else are they supposed to keep dry?" he sounded as if he was joking, but it was hard to tell since his attention was now focused on the paper that he held. He stared at it with that same intense confusion before scratching his unshaven chin and glancing up at Robin.

"Now that's odd..." he said quietly. "I got this message the moment I landed in Florida. All of the circumstances point to you being the one to send it to me." He got to his feet and before Robin could protest, grabbed her head in his hands and began to move it from side to side. "But you can't read the message... you couldn't have sent it to me. If you had sent it to me you would be able to read it, but instead your brain is trying to scrub it out like a dirty spot." He was quiet for a moment as he tilted her head left and right, but eventually he let her head go and grinned that odd pearly grin once again.

"That's quite interesting... a human with latent telepathic abilities. If you wanted to I bet you could send me a message through the psychic paper, but you don't know what you're capable of yet." The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a new device: an odd set of divining rods with a plus and minus sign etched into each of them. He held them into the air above him and stared blankly at them before smirking and pocketing them again.

"Well, this has been fun," he said with a grin. "I'm sure you think that you're thinking that I'm so looney man playing a trick on you or you're going doolally from over working yourself, but let me assure you that you're only about..." he stopped to consider what he was about to say, "...two thirds right."

fireandblood

"Well I know it's wet in the UK, and it is here in Florida too, but I really can't imagine wearing that right now. You have to be all sweat under there." Robin wrinkled her nose at the thought but saw that this "Doctor" wasn't paying attention to anything she was saying. He was looking intently at the strange paper and scratching his chin. Her bright green eyes looked at him quizzically. As much as she wanted to be rid of him, he was... intriguing.

And then he was grabbing her. Her protestations were met with little response, and no matter how hard he tried to shake her head, his strong hands held it in place. Finally, she huffed a breath and kept still, letting him babble on and on and turn her head in every direction. He let her go after a moment and she rubbed her neck in irritation.

"If I have neck problems I'm going to sue you," she said, only half-joking. But then the Doctor started saying the strangest things. A human with psychic abilities... Sending a message through the psychic paper... And he produced some new equipment seemingly out of nowhere before looking at them briefly and returning them to his pockets. More nonsense came from him but Robin hardly heard. Her hands were trembling and a horrible sense of foreboding overtook her.

"Who are you?" she asked again, this time her voice a frightened whisper. "Really, who are you?"

Villain

"The oncoming storm, the destroyer of worlds, the traveler from beyond time, Ka Faraq Gatri, Times Champion..." the Doctor spoke with a bored voice as he rattled off the titles, stuffing his hands in his pockets and wandering around in a circle. He looked so unimpressed by the grand titles that it almost looked annoyed. "I've got too many titles, my birth certificate must be over flowing."

As the Doctor looked at Robin the boredom disappeared and panic flooded on his face. "Whoa, don't do that! I'm not a bad guy! I swear! I like humans, I like you Robin! You're strange, amazing, incredible and yet still wonderfully normal at the same time. You've got a one of a kind mind yet you still act like a normal human when you're faced with the weird and unexplainable. It's wonderful!"

His attempt to reassure her was cut short as an alarm blared through the theme park. The Doctor's ears seemed to prick up before he frantically glanced left and right. "Right... that can't be good." He heard a selection of screams coming from all directions, people began rushing past them in terror. "I was right! I love it when that happens," he said cheerfully before rubbing his hands together.

"Plasmic life form must have repaired the fuses I blew with my sonic screw driver. It's probably growing more powerful by the second and taking over the park bit by bit. I better go deal with that," he began to walk away from Robin, towards the chaos, unperturbed by the screaming families that stormed past him.

fireandblood

The strange ominous feeling that had overtaken Robin dissipated almost as soon as it came, and her normal, calm demeanor took its place. Oncoming storm? Destroyer of worlds? What was this man talking about? It seemed like a bunch of gibberish to her, especially the blasé way in which he was saying these grandiose titles.

Then he was... complimenting her? Or insulting her? It seemed to be the two at the same time. Strange and normal, which was it? Once again, Robin was interrupted before she could speak. If the alarm wasn't so terribly frightening, she supposed she would have been annoyed. People were running past, clutching their children tight to their bodies with expressions of fright on their faces.

Robin knew that she should join them... and yet...

"Hey!" she called, jogging a little to catch up with the Doctor, "You should have an employee with you. I can't just let you go wandering around with your weird weapon thingies while there's an alarm going off. Besides, I feel like you owe me a few explanations. You say 'humans' like you aren't one yourself. Are you an alien like those things? Are you here to destroy our world? Because if you are I'm going to stop you even though you have that sonic... Thing. I'm not afraid." The words tumbled out of her like a waterfall; she wanted to get it all out before she was interrupted yet again.

Villain

"Of course you're not afraid. You had the chance to run away the moment I started walking towards the people fleeing in terror, but you didn't," he said casually whilst they walked through the crowds of people, the Doctor almost seemed to be skipping along as he dodged and weaved through the terrified tourists. "Instead you've decided to follow the daft man in an anorak into a potentially life threatening situation. You positively ooze not afraidness."

The Doctor narrowly avoided a tourist dressed from head to toe in Universal Studios merchandise and casually pinched the butter beer he was almost crushing in fright. He drank the odd sweet drink and let out a content sigh. "That hits the spot. They really need to sell this in Korova Moo," he said before offering the drink to Robin.

"Yes. I am an alien," he said without humor before waggling the golden drink in front of her face. "But, I'm an alien who likes your planet and is offering you butter beer. I think you can take that as a sign that I come in peace."

fireandblood

It was so odd, but the Doctor's enthusiasm was infectious. Robin found herself almost smiling as they weaved their way through the retreating crowds. It didn't seem to matter that they were heading toward a hostile alien keen on taking their lives with a single touch. All that mattered was that the Doctor was here and she was walking quickly alongside him.

A laugh escaped her as she watched the strange man grab the Butterbeer from the tourist. She wondered if things were always like this for him... Running all the time, chasing dangerous aliens, talking like a character from some kind of Sci-Fi movie. She got the very distinct feeling that it was. Again she saw the image of the rose and the box.

Then he was wiggling the Butterbeer in front of her face. For a second, she looked between it and the Doctor, pondering his statements for a moment. Smiling, she took the drink from him and polished it off, depositing it neatly in a garbage can as they passed it.

"So," she said, "What's the protocol for one's first encounter with an alien?" Giggling madly, she lifted her right hand and gave him the Vulcan salute, spreading her fingers into the recognizable V shape. "Live long and prosper," she said with another laugh. Then something occurred to her and she looked at him ponderously.

"This might sound like a weird question," she said quietly. "But... Would you happen to have any idea why I keep seeing a rose? And some kind of... blue box? The box says something on it but I can never make it out..."

Villain

"Well, with my species first contact involves a long boring rite of passage with red robes and flags. The flags are nice, but I trip over when I wear robes. I really have no idea how they managed to film Harry Potter without there being some sort of accident. Did they take robe wearing classes or something?" the Doctor aked before giving the nearest Harry Potter attraction a quizzical stare. After a moment of realising that the attraction was not going to answer his question the Doctor turned back to Robin and shrugged. "Personally, for a first greeting I prefer: 'Hi I'm the Doctor it's nice to meet you, care for a cup of tea?'"

He licked his lips at the thought of tea. Bringing up the hot beverage had obviously made him thirsty again. "You know what, I could go for another one of those butter beers..." he looked about and found a half spilled and slightly trampled cup of the stuff lying on the ground near him. "Yoink!" he said as he picked it up and began to gulp down the slightly dirty drink.

"A blue box and a rose?" the Doctor asked, only half paying attention as he sipped the sweet drink. "The blue box is easy, but I'll explain later. Trust me, it'll be worth the wait. As for a rose now that's a bit tricky. Can't recall why-"

The Doctor was interrupted by his own screams as half of his temple suddenly burned with golden light. His free hand clawed savagely at the sudden burning wound on his head, but after a moment he seemed to realise that it wasn't doing any good and instead settled for crying out in agony and clutching the drinks cup in between his hands.

Inside the Doctors mind memories burned like acid and seared every single one of his brilliant brain cells. Pain was rushing through his veins. The pain of something lost. Something that he had forgotten because of his incomplete regeneration. The memories that would surface every now and again to remind the Doctor of the friends he had lost and blocked out and the memories that would return with fiery heat as his regeneration completed what it had been unable to do.

"ROSE!" the Doctor roared the moment the golden fire ceased burning from his head. He turned to Robin and pointed accusingly at her, "Rose Tyler! She was lovely and blonde like you and knew how to have fun. Now she's swanning around in the other world with one of my old faces the lucky sod! She was a brave, brilliant girl who absorbed the time vortex and wiped out a whole army with one flick of her finger and I miss her and all the rest of the friends that I've lost!"

He stopped ranting and stared at Robin with a bewildered look on his face. He was panting heavily and sweat was running down his forehead. He pulled out a piece of ice from the cup and pressed it to his temple. After a few seconds he let out a deep breath and opened his eyes to meet Robin's.

Now they didn't seem happy, sad, excited or angry, instead they looked old. Too old. The oldest pair of eyes on the face of the earth. A stare that had seen more than Robin could possibly comprehend.

"I'm sorry. That happens sometimes," he said before turning his back on her and resuming to march towards the disaster area, a cup of butter beer in one hand and the sonic screw driver in the other.

fireandblood

Robin made a face as the Doctor picked up the cup of Butterbeer and drank from it. That was probably in the hands of some grubby little kid, and who knew how many people had stepped on it? Her thoughts were interrupted, though, as a blaze of pain shot through her own head, causing her to cry out for a second before the pain disappeared altogether, leaving her panting and confused. Then, she looked at the Doctor and gasped in shock.

He was screaming, yelling, clawing at his head... Something was happening, and Robin had no idea what to do to help him. She placed a hand gently on his arm but she didn't think he even felt it. Nor did she think he heard her shouting at him several times. Soon, though, something else seemed to happen and his eyes flew open.

As he began shouting about this girl, Rose Tyler, Robin took a bewildered and slightly frightened step back. He was so intense, so strange... And in this moment, with his eyes like molten metal and his voice like white-hot fire, he seemed dangerous as well. In this moment, Robin could see where he got nicknames like the oncoming storm... Or the destroyer of worlds.

Then he was looking at her, and she felt even more terrified. His golden eyes, usually so full of life and fervor, had changed. They were timeless, ageless, and old. So old... Robin couldn't even fathom how old the Doctor must have been, or the things he must have seen, to have eyes like that.

After he apologized, he walked off without a backward glance, and Robin stood there in shock for one more moment before jogging again to catch up to him. When she did, she grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. Looking up at him a little nervously, she wrapped her arms around his waist and embraced him for a couple of seconds.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," she said softly. Then, she released him, but grabbed his hand again and pulled him along with her toward the waiting danger.

Villain

The Doctor had been stunned into silence. He had met dozens of extraordinary people that had changed his life and touched his heart in more ways than they would ever know, but this person, this amazing person, had just seen him at his weakest and perhaps his worst, and yet had hugged him despite everything.

Robin, the little psychic of Florida. How bizarre it all seemed to the Doctor, to know that this girl would be like the others. She too would change his life for better or worse and he would never forget her. At least, he would try his very hardest not to.

The two of them delve deeper into the park. The flood of frightened people had eased off. Those who remained were either trembling in terror, seeking refuge behind bins and pieces of Harry potter scenery, or were the good people who had stayed behind to help rescue trapped or injured people.

Humans. No matter where the Doctor went they always impressed him.

The Doctor and Robin finally came to a stop as they came across what was once a perfect replica of Hogsmede. The streets were empty and most of the buildings were in tatter, their roofs and windows collapsed or slashed to ribbons by the electric whip bodies of the plasmic aliens. Trash covered the streets along with a think layer of black dust.

"That's unfortunate," the Doctor spoke before putting his sonic screwdriver between his teeth and bending to pick up a handful of the black dust and run it through his fingers. "I was too late to save these people," he spoke after taking the screwdriver out of his mouth. "The creatures reduced them to ash. It was quick, they hardly felt anything, but what they did feel hurt." He huffed angrily before getting to his feet and glancing around the village.

"What I don't understand is why they're attacking and why here of all places? This is a theme park, it's hardly the centre for the United Nations. They could have inhabited the computer system of the white house or a military base and used all their technology to bring on an age of extinction, but they didn't..."

The Doctor had began to pace in a circle, his brow furrowed as he began to connect the dots. "This obviously isn't primal instinct, these aliens aren't mindless beasts, they're intelligent and know what they're doing. They don't feed on their victims by electrocuting them, its a simple evil act of murder. That's all it is. So why suddenly declare war on Universal Studios? It doesn't make sense."

"And do you know what else doesn't make sense?" the Doctor asked Robin, whirling on his feet and marching up to her. "What really doesn't make any sense, in fact what makes no sense at all, is why is it so quiet?" The Doctor asked before raising his screw driver and scanning the green light over the area. Sure enough, the world around them was silent. The only sounds that could be heard were the very distant screams and sirens of oncoming police cars.

"They've stopped attacking. Why have they done that?" the Doctor asked whilst scratching his fuzzy chin with the end of the sonic screw driver. "Why on earth would they stop their attacks and go into hiding. Unless... unless..." His voice trailed off before he closed his eyes and let a heavy sigh.

"Unless of course they've stopped attacking because now they've got all the annoying distractions out of the way and have what they really want," the Doctor said wearily before gazing up at the buildings that surrounded them. "This is a trap."

As if on cue, wire chords shot out of buildings from all directions and twisted into knots. Blue lightning coiled around them, forming not only electric skulls, but a full skeletal body of pulsating power. There were dozens of the creatures forming on the roofs, in the door ways and windows and on the path surrounding them. The monsters screeched and hissed, but kept there distance from the Doctor and Robin.

Despite the creatures reluctance one thing was for sure. They were surrounded and their was no way out.

fireandblood

Robin hadn't noticed the Doctor's silence. If she had, it would have seemed odd to her - he had hardly stopped talking since they met. She was distracted by the sight of Paul, who was guiding an elderly woman to the safety of the exit. Sighing in relief, Robin waved to him, and after he showed the woman the exit he jogged over to the pair.

"Robin, I was so worried!" He said, embracing her. He then noticed the Doctor and gave him a puzzled look. "Who's this?"

"This is the Doctor," she said, "But I'll have to introduce you two later. For now, you've got to get to the police and tell them it's too dangerous to come inside. Tell them they won't know how to deal with what's happening. I can't explain it to you now, there isn't time, but I'll try later, I promise. The Doctor knows what he's doing and he's going to get us out of here safely. Go now, no questions, go!" Paul gave her a look but complied and ran away, shooting one more glance back at the alien to Robin's left.

As she looked back at him, she saw that he had began to scan the piles of dust that littered the street. Then he started talking, and as Robin realized what the dust was, she gasped and her hands flew to her mouth. They were people. People who had been killed by this... Plasmic being. A choked sob forced its way from her throat as her eyes flitted from pile to pile. There had to be close to a hundred. A hundred people who wouldn't be going home to their families...

And then the Doctor stood straight and began to talk. Robin didn't interrupt; she didn't have anything useful to add and so she just listened. As he reached the question of the silence, she realized what he was implying. They were caught in a trap and... And the wires...

A scream came from Robin as the electricity formed almost humanoid shapes around them. She grasped the Doctor's hand again, tightly.

"Doctor," she said, her voice shaking, "Doctor, please tell me you have a plan. You seem like a guy who always has a plan. You aren't going to let us die, right?"

Villain

"I don't know," the Doctor answered, but his voice didn't sound like he had given up, rather he sounded angry. Very very angry. "I mean killing us is all part of the plan isn't it?" The Doctor asked out loud, spinning on his heel to face every single one of the glowing skeleton's.

"You've been very busy. You set up the perfect sequence of events to get me here," he wandered up to one of the glowing skeletons and stared into its pulsating eye sockets. "The message in the psychic paper, setting it up to look like it had come from an innocent young woman with psychic potential being conveniently attacked by these electric puppets that you dressed up to look like an invading species. You even slaughtered innocent people for no other reason that to make it look like every other monster attack that I've ever had to deal with. All of it to make me delve a little deeper and wander blindly into a trap."

The Doctor began walking in a big circle around Robin, keeping the beasts at ay as they edged closer. He made eye contact with every single one of them as he talked, as if proving that not a single one of them could possibly intimidate him. Eventually, he came to a stop in front of Robin and began adjusting the settings on his sonic screwdriver.

"You set up the perfect cliche," he muttered, bitterly. "And it worked, because until five minutes ago I had forgotten you. Along with everything else I had done with Rose Tyler."

He rolled the screwdriver in his hand to glare at the small scar of gold fire that was burning from the palm of his hand. Part of his mind was burning in pain as new memories surfaced to join the rest, but he refused to scream. He wouldn't scream in front of the creature that wanted to see him squirm.

"So come on then!" the Doctor yelled and thrust his arms out to his sides. "You have me! I'm here at your mercy and its time for the masks to come off and for you and me to slug it out! So come on out you cowardly little creature!"

Something came crashing through one of the windows and flew a few metres ahead of the Doctor and Robin. The copper wire creatures were carrying a replica of the Mirror of Erised, which they placed on the ground carefully before coiling around it and plugging themselves into the back of it like the wires in a computer monitor.

"Wires...it was so obvious." The Doctor muttered as the mirror's surface shone blue and began to form the image of an old fashioned looking woman with frizzy hair and painted lips, grinning savagely at them with unfathomable hatred.

"Hello, Doctor." The woman spoke in a sickly sweet voice while the skeletal creatures gathered on either side of her mirror, like some sort of nightmarish royal guard. "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin"

fireandblood

Robin stood in a trembling silence as the Doctor yelled at the creatures surrounding them. Nothing made any sense to her; apparently they had met before and... this wasn't an invading species? She glanced at the Doctor in confusion before returning her eyes to the crackling, skeletal figures around them. They were terrifying, and Robin wasn't quite sure how her new friend planned to get them out of this situation.

Suddenly, he called for them to "unmask," and Robin grew even more confused. What could possibly be lurking behind these creatures? Another gasp escaped her as the wires brought forth the Universal version of the Mirror of Erised. This was all so strange, and so seemingly random. As the wires plugged into the back of the mirror, Robin inched behind the Doctor and peeked around his shoulder.

The screen flashed blue and then the most hateful face Robin had ever seen flickered to life on it. She spoke, and her voice was all honey and poison. Robin whimpered; she couldn't help herself.

"Doctor," she whispered, clutching the back of his anorak, "What is it?"

Villain

"She's called the Wire," the Doctor growled. "A creature from the planet Hermethica. Her species is able to transform into living plasmic energy and the Wire here decided to use the gift to lead a gang of criminals." The Doctor smirked and took a few steps towards the creature. "But when she got caught they took her physical form away from her and trapped her in energy form to await execution."

"Luckily for her she was able to escape via a communications broadcast and reach earth in 1953, but she was still trapped in her energy form. So she decided to do a lot of unpleasant things to try and hijack the broadcast of the Queens coronation and sap the brain waves out of twenty million people. All for the sake of manifesting her original form," the Doctor had begun to grin at the Wire, who stared back at him with scorn, the corner of her lips twitching a little in fury. "But that didn't work did it old girl?"

"You interfered with my plans Doctor."

"Too right I did. I sucked you out of the wires and trapped you on a betamax tape," the Doctor replied before taking a few more steps so that he could square up to the villainess. "Goodness knows how you escaped from it. I was sure that if I taped over you then you would be gone forever...so I taped over you with...." his voice trailed off for a moment before he suddenly let out a yell and pointing at her. "With Harry Potter and the chamber of Secrets! It was showing on channel four so I taped over you with it and planned on watching it on a rainy day."

"And that was your mistake Doctor," the Wire cackled with delight. "My will was strong enough to survive, so I bided my time until you inevitably and foolishly played the tape and escaped through the wiring of the television."

"I always wondered why the TV in my Tardis suddenly went bust."

"I spent a long time regaining my power until eventually I was strong enough to move through the worlds television network and possess an unsuspecting flesh body and force it to move to my will."

"But, the flesh body wouldn't be able to hold a being of pure energy for long, so you followed that impulse that had been planted by merging with the footage of the film and came here to use the theme park as your base of operations. You hopped from body to body, not caring at all how many burned up in the process, until you eventually came across Robin over here and her brilliant mind."

"The girl possessed quite a gift and by now I had been inside enough miserable humans to gain an understanding of how the brains psychic capabilities worked." the Wire explained, her grin growing a little wider. "I deduced that you would almost certainly come running in to save her if she was interesting enough, but just to make sure I included the little Rose picture in case you still harbored some feelings for the delicious little girl."

"This is all terribly clever Wire," the Doctor said with a nod, "You now possess an entire theme park and have used alien technology to boost your powers and gain control over this entire area. You even have the brain power to create your own little minions... but something is out of place here."

The Doctor began walking in a circle again as he pondered over the problem he was facing. After a few seconds thought he grinned broadly and turned back to the creature.

"Why haven't you tried to get back your physical body?" he asked slyly. "There are no end of popular television shows in America. Even at it's lowest American Idol rakes in over twenty-six million viewers. You could have merged with the broadcast and drained them all to get your physical form back."

The Wire now looked as if she had swallowed something sour. Her eyes were burning with even more hatred than before. The Doctor let out a loud laugh and pointed at the mirror before racing up to it and planting his forehead against it so he could stare deep into her artificial eyes. The creatures beside her snarled and reared their crackling bodies, but he didn't back away.

"You can't can you?!" He asked loudly and grinning at her mockingly. "The damage I dealt to you was far too severe. You can't ever regain your corporeal form no matter what you do and you know that! I wounded you beyond repair!"

fireandblood

Robin didn't know what to make of any of it. It all seemed far too outlandish, too complicated to be true... How could someone have their "physical form" taken away? It really seemed like that would kill anyone... Even an alien. Though she supposed that everything she'd seen made it obvious that some, if not all, alien life forms had more advanced technology than humans. It was interesting; earlier today she had not even known aliens existed, and now here she was face-to-screen with one.

How strange.

After a few comments back and forth between the Doctor and the Wire, Robin stopped paying attention. This all seemed like a movie of some sort; the hero and the villain, hashing out what had happened between them though it actually led to no real purpose. She did, however, catch the compliments (well, she assumed they were compliments) tossed out by both the Doctor and the Wire.

Looking around, she found herself thinking about what to do to get them out of the park without having to be swept up. She noticed that all of the electric shapes seemed to be connected, and the current was flowing in one direction. Following it with her eyes, she noticed that it was heading in the direction of the simulator. Which happened to be a few yards to the right.

"Doctor," she said as quietly as she could. "I'm assuming these things have one common energy source, right? The wires are using electricity from other buildings, but their energy adapters are only hooked into one ride generator, right?" A plan was forming, and she sincerely hoped she was right about this.

Villain

"Not now Robin, I'm talking smack with a mirror!" The Doctor called over his shoulder before stepping back from the Wire. "So you're unable to take a physical form and I bet that by now you've hopped around so many bodies that you're starting to come apart aren't you? In fact, even though you've possessed the park, you'll eventually over exert yourself and fall to pieces."

The Doctor scratched his chin with the sonic screwdriver again and took another step back to gaze over the Wire. Something wasn't adding up.

"So what's your plan?" He asked. "Now that you have me are you going to use your last moments of life to kill me slowly and painfully with an animatronic puppet? Run me over with a set of roller coaster carts? Hang me above Hogwarts school and use me as a lightning rod?"

"Those are fine idea's Doctor and I will delight in doing them all to you once my plan is complete" the Wire said maliciously. The wire creatures beside her had begun to chuckle, causing them to let sparks fly off their none existent tongues.

"Well you better do your plan quickly. You've only got a couple of hours left. You wouldn't want to waste any more precious time."

"Oh I have not wasted a second Doctor. The moment I gained control of this wonderful place I put my plan into motion." the Wire spoke with delight. "Do you know how reliant on technology these humans you protect are? Every single one of them spends hours in front of the television or on the internet or on their phones. If they didn't have technology they would cease to exist, so they make sure that almost every country on earth has some means of electricity. Which is why they're perfect prey for my servants."

Now it was the Doctor's turn to look surprised. He gritted his teeth and tightened his grip around his sonic screwdriver. "You didn't..."

"Oh yes I did. I sent out a signal via a communications broadcast to my beloved servants on Hermethica. They are few, but they are still mighty, and soon they'll be here to aid me in conquering your world and slaughtering the humans you love before your eyes. And the very first one we will start with is that girl you have been dragging into so much trouble"

"So that's your perfect plan? You pick a location that I won’t be able to resist. You use what little power you have to send a psychic message to me, posing as a girl with psychic potential. I come running and rescue her and start preparing to prevent an invasion and when it’s too late, you spring your trap and prepare to make me suffer the ultimate defeat in your last pathetic moments of life. You call down your band of renegade plasmic beings, you kill an innocent girl that I cannot possibly save, burn the world I love and finally torture me to death in very creative ways using the theme park you’ve gained control of.”

"Very good you clever boy, but you're forgetting something," the Wire said before winking at him. "First we'll disarm you."

The Doctor barely had time to cry out as the wire creature that had been creeping up behind him touched his hand and sent an electric shock surging through him. He yelled out in pain and collapsed to his knees, the sonic screwdriver fell from his hands and rolled away, where it was immediately stamped on by one of the creatures and reduced to burnt metal.

"This is my victory Doctor!" The Wire cackled loudly. "Look above you! You will soon see the ship that will bring my servants to me and then you'll watch with desperation as they feed on every life on this ugly little planet! You are helpless! You are unarmed! You have no one to save you! You have nothing to stop me with!"

fireandblood

Robin rolled her eyes at the Doctor's reply and took it as an affirmative. Anyway, what could her actions do other than get her killed faster? From what the woman in the mirror was saying, these creatures were planning on some drawn-out takeover and torture of the Doctor... but all of their scenarios ended in the death of Robin. So she straightened her posture and put her idea into motion.

She began walking around the circle of electric creatures, their chuckling faces all focused on the Doctor. Though she knew all of their attention was on her strange companion - he was the important one, of course - she tried to make it look as though she was just inspecting them. The less attention she drew to herself the better. None of them even looked at her. Good.

Making her way around the circle, she finally reached her true destination. There was a box on the side of the sim ride, inconspicuous and the same color as the wall. It was easily missed if you didn't know to look for it, but Robin did. Inhaling deeply, she closed her eyes and ducked under the "arms" of the electric apparitions, hoping they were still so focused on the Doctor that they wouldn't zap her on the spot.

As she stepped under, she opened her eyes in relief and huffed out the breath she had been holding. Safe. They hadn't moved one bit. As quietly as she could, Robin snuck to the little metal door and produced a key from her pocket. Slowly and silently, she slid the key into the lock and turned it, and the door opened to reveal a blinking panel and lines of multicolored wires. Thinking back to training, she tried to remember which color the emergency wire was.

Confidently, she grabbed the blue wire in her hands, she closed her eyes again, offering a silent prayer up to whomever was listening. Then, she jerked her arm back hard, snapping the wire in half.

Villain

The moment the wire came loose Robin was sent hurtling back as lightning surged over the machine and exploded. The wire beasts let out a screech of despair as the power supply the Wire was using to sustain them suddenly lost its juice and drained them of their power. Each of them fell to the ground, their copper wires smoking and their skeletal forms vanishing.

"What is happening! What is happening?!" The Wire screeched as she looked left and right at her dieing soldiers. She could feel her powers weakening away. The boost of strength that the park had given her was now rapidly fading and soon she would be the only thing left. And when that happened, she would be powerless.

"There are two things you should know," the Doctor groaned as he got to his feet and Dusted off his anorak. "One, don't let me talk for ages. I am up to no good when I talk for ages. When I blabber it gives me or my friend time to be mischievous." he said before reaching into the inside pocket of his coat.

"Secondly, I am never unarmed," he spoke before pulling out a corked test tube filled with some sort of squirming green plant. The Wire had started screaming as more of her soldiers fell. Her image was flickering as the feedback rattled the screen.

"I can recover Doctor! I can reach out to another part of the park in seconds and find another generator to drain! I will be restored!" the Wire shouted at him, her voice reeking of desperation.

"I imagine you will, but first here's a little bit of trivia for you," the Doctor spoke cheerfully whilst uncorking the test tube with his teeth and spitting out the cork. "On the planet of Rubnerica they have a seemingly permanent electro dampening field surrounding their world that makes it impossible to create electrical currents and for machinery to work. The residents there seem to believe that its because of the special algae in the water creating the field when they're in extreme cold temperatures, but since they can't create an electric current to test it them haven't discovered if this is true or not."

The Doctor held up the test tube in one hand and the cup of butter beer and ice that he had been drinking in the other. He grinned like a mad man before asking; "Shall we find out?"

The Wire let out a cry as he poured the contents of the test tube into the butter beer and thew the cup at the mirror. The moment it hit the glass green foam exploded over its surface and surged outwards like a wave, covering the wires that curled out from the back of the mirror. The crackling of electricity ceased as what was left of the creatures surrounding them became covered in the foam. The Wire screamed feebly as every wire she could have used to escape through became riddled with the gunk.

"You're doomed," the Doctor spoke solemnly as he watched the image of the frizzy haired woman wail. "Hitting you with the algae after the blue wire got pulled out has crippled you. You have no exit, you can't recharge yourself and very soon you'll short out forever."

He stepped back and dug his hands into his pockets. Staring at her with the deep intensity that had burned in his eyes earlier that day, only now it didn't seem so blazing. Instead it seemed cold. "And I'm sorry, but after everything you've done... I'm glad."

fireandblood

Robin was instantly rendered unconscious as the bolt of electricity coursed through her body. It was lucky; the force of her collision with the ground would also have knocked her out, but it would have been a bit more painful. Be that as it may, she would have a multitude of bruises when she awoke. But now, as she lay on the ground in slumber, she dreamed.

Visions whirled through her head, jagged and disorganized and insane. Giant green monsters with bulbous black eyes. Men, women, and children with gas masks growing out of their faces. Cat-people walking around in a super-advanced hospital. A giant face with tendrils coming out of it, standing in a case filled with smoke. Statues of angels with their hands over their eyes. Strange, dome-shaped metal things with giant studs running down the sides and some sort of plunger sticking out of them. A man laughing, and a drum beat... Boom-boom-boom-boom. Boom-boom-boom-boom.

Then there were faces. A blonde girl with a brilliant smile and kind eyes. A woman with red hair who claimed to be "the best temp in Chiswick." A black woman with an intelligence and bravery that seemed to radiate from her entire being. Another red-haired girl who had waited for twelve years. Faces that came faster and faster, in a racing slideshow that never seemed to have an end.

Tears fell from Robin's eyes as the images sped through her head. There seemed to be a sense of melancholy to all of these pictures, as if they had all been left behind... And some had left the Doctor behind... Again the image of the strange blue box floated to the forefront of her thoughts. She could see it clearly now; it said "Police Public Call Box" and had a flashing light on the top. A metallic vworp-type noise emanated from it. Slowly, the door came open, and she was surprised to see that the room contained within was vast, and seemingly infinite if you wandered around inside.

As she faded back into consciousness, the door of the strange box closed and vanished, and she found herself lying on the ground with a pounding headache. Groaning, she grabbed her head and stood very slowly, making her way toward the Doctor. He had thrown some kind of green substance onto the screen/mirror and was saying he was glad that this Wire would soon be gone.

"Doctor," Robin said, her voice hoarse. "Is... Is it going away now?"