From Sonya to... What? (Robin/Strawberry)

It didn't take long for the guards to get tired of Sayo's constant yelling about everything he could think about and show back up. "Ah, yes, there you are." He quieted down, stepping back to stand beside Robin with a cheerful smile, bouncing slightly on the balls of his heels, hands clasped behind his back as he eyed the dog-headed men. "Care to tell what is going on now?" The guards stepped into the room silently, eyeing him and Robin both without a word.

"Look, see!" Sayo blurted out, uncomfortable with standing still and the silence, he just wasn't built for it. Nodding over to the wall where he carved the Gallifreyan symbols, drawing the dog-headed men to it. "I'm clever, you need me. I get that, but what I don't get is why. Explain it." The smile dropped from his face this time, a dark look crossing his eyes for a split second before another grin curled his lips back up. "You don't want me against you."

Turning to Robin, he sent her a wink, mostly to rile her up, before facing the guards with a firm expression. "Take us to your leader and the Dangerous Girl if you don't mind." Silence reigned for a moment then the guards stepped forward as one, pointing their weapons at the both of them without a word, silently urging the two towards the door and down the hall. "Ah, yes, the silent treatment, very good." Sayo mumbled, hands shooting up in front of him out of habit. Spending a few years as Sonya during a bad period made him a bit jumpy when it came to authority figures.

"Don't fight." Whispering out of the corner of his mouth to Robin, Sayo went along with the guards as they lead them down several hallways and stopped outside of a door. Stepping past them, both guards stationed themselves on either side of it, one of them pointing it's spear at them then gesturing to the door with a low grunt in their unique language.

"In here? Good good." With a cheerful smile, Sayo dropped his hands, stuffed them in his pockets and nudged Robin to the door with his shoulder. "Thank you for your time... Gentlemen..? Ah." Flapping a hand in the air, he waved off his own comment and opened the door to come face to face with Dangerous girl herself, followed by several others in period clothing. Swallowing back the sound of surprise he almost made, Sayo pushed Robin inside and quickly ducked in himself, shutting the door behind them with a snap.

Gazing around quickly, he spied two guards tied up and slowly twitching as if on the verge of waking and one other not moving, a pool of orange spread out from around him. "Ah.. I knew that name suited you." He flashed Strawberry a quick grin before moving towards the center of the floor, eyeing the grinding mechanism there with a small frown. "What is this?"

Chris followed begrudgingly, a snarl stuck on her face. Sayo was causing so much unnecessary trouble right now and it was making her blood boil. Her fists remained clenched at her sides as she struggled to waddle along with him, trying not to get caught with a spear for being too slow. Once they reached where they were being taken, she had zero time to comprehend what was going on before she was shoved inside and toppled onto her knees as the door was slammed behind her.

Huffing in frustration, she picked herself up from the ground, ready to shout Sayo into oblivion, but she noticed the room. She noticed Strawberry and the others, and she noticed the grinder, but more importantly, she noticed the bodies.

It seemed the ones tied up were merely unconscious - good - but that bloodstain... It made her feel a bit sick. She knew it was the enemy, and she knew she shouldn't be this upset, but her wings were hugged close to her body and she couldn't remove her eyes from the corpse. Her lips pursed as she pulled herself away from it, trying to shake it off as she faced the rest of this hellscape.

"Sorry, didn't catch that, say again?" She tried to look as if nothing was wrong. Which it wasn't. It was fine. It was the enemy, stop f****** caring, Chris.

Sayo furrowed his eyebrows, focusing on the... Person Killer Thing as Strawberry so eloquently put. Biting back a chuckle at her choice of words, he strode around the edge of the machine and approached the controls, well, he says controls when in reality there were three buttons at the most. "Off." His finger hovered over one of the buttons the moved to the others, naming them out loud to himself in turn. "On and.... What do you do my friend?" Unable to resist the glowing purple button, he pressed it down and looked over at the grinder.

Silence. Frowning in disappointment, Sayo moved to rejoin the girls when a loud screeching noise echoed around the chamber. "Ah! That was the Dangerous button! Did you push it, Dangerous Girl?" He called over to Strawberry, cheerful to a fault as he turned to face the grinder, watching with excitement as it began to rise up out of the floor.

Stumbling back to the group, he looped an arm around both girls, a manic gleam in his eyes as he watched the grinder slowly move upwards, the faint glint of light and reflecting materials catching his eye as it peeked from the bottom edge. "That is what I was looking for!" Crowing with energy, he ran towards the grinder as it came to a halt, revealing a door set in it's side, an open door that had more than enough lights blinking inside of it to draw his attention. "Dangerous Girl, guard the door, keep the... The..." He flapped a hand at the group of prisoners wildly. "The humans safe, Robin, with me!"

Ducking inside, he stared around with sparkling eyes, easily zooming in on a small, square container of what looked like glass filled with brown sludge set into the center of a console. It was nearly full judging from the way it sloshed. "Now what do we have here, hm?" Striding towards it, it fiddled with a few of the buttons, long fingers brushing over the touch sensitive controls and bringing up a screen that flickered in front of them and came to life, displaying what looked like a blueprint of a vaguely familiar ship.

"Ah?" Humming, he leaned closer to the image, fingers wiggling along the console in a fluttering type of motion, bringing the image closer to one room, one room with several heat signatures. "This is us." He commented over his shoulder at where he assumed Robin was behind him, one hand reaching up to point at the picture. Sliding his finger over, he hovered it over the two faint signals in the center of the room. "This room isn't in the schematic. At all. Meaning..." He trailed off and frowned, wiggling his fingers over the controls again, zooming the image around the map of the ship to random places until settling back on the one where they were. "It wasn't part of the original ship."

"With you?! Ugh..." Chris whined, reluctantly flying after the madman. She sent a look of apology towards Strawberry before standing in the doorway of the room.

The sight of the brown sludge was sickening. Considering Strawberry had called it a person killer.... She gagged a bit, holding a hand to her stomach. How many people did that contain? How many people did you have to slay to fill that bucket? And more importantly, why?

Flying closer to Sayo, she listened to his clarifications, watching the machine absentmindedly. Sonya used to do this. This was her thing. Figuring out the plan. It reminded her of how she was dead now. Of course, she wasn't dead, he was right here. But it wasn't the same...

He caught her attention again with the remark that this wasn't in the original plans. "So they built it later? But why?" she raised an eyebrow, peering at the screen he'd pulled up as if it would tell her anything. "Why build a room to use up human bodies?" She murmured, thinking over the potential uses of human sludge. Living humans could be all sorts of things: donors, slaves, an electrical source... Wait.

"Did this ship crash? Or run out of fuel or something? Can you check?" If Chris' theory was right, they might be able to solve this in an instant. "Because maybe they think they can still harness the electrical current in a human once they're dead. Why else would the grind up all those bodies except for fuel? Right?"

Of course, they could be lunch. But she didn't want to think about that.

Blinking in surprise, Sayo sent Robin a shocked look before wiggling his fingers over the controls again, attention drawn by the screen as information began scrolling. "You're right, it did crash, near fifty years ago. Clever." Sending her a wink over his shoulder, he turned back to reading curiously, fingers twitching almost nervously when the information began about a construct being designed to re-power the ship to leave.

"Oh... Ah dear, this is not good." Murmuring, he closed the screen and took his hands from the controls before walking over to the small container full of brown slush. "Robin, what would you say this is? Considering the purpose of this machine?" He asked her, voice curiously empty of it's usual cheerful tone as he stared at the container with an unusual expression on his face. Eyebrows pinched together and lips pressed tight. "At first I assumed it would be blood, collected from the bodies..."

Reaching out, he tapped a nail against the glass, watching the liquid inside swish from side to side for a moment before settling back down again. "Then, perhaps it was liquified bone matter. But no, according to the information almost a hundred humans have been fed into this thing, and this container-" He tapped it again, a soft bell-like note resounding from it. Pretty despite the source. "Is much too small, and judging by the looks of it, it hasn't been removed since placed inside here."

Turning to face Robin, his expression twitched and melted away into a sadder one, eyes sparkling with upset as he stared at her. "It's human DNA, pure DNA, down to the last protein molecule. Why they need it, I have no idea, there are no other humans besides this little planet in the entire universe at this moment. It seems... Useless to have it as a fuel source."

The door slamming open suddenly caught him off guard, hand snapping out to grab onto Robin's as he drug her outside to face off with the Dog-headed aliens pouring into the room. "Dangerous Girl! Get out of there, get those humans-"

"Silence, Time Lord." One of them said, raising a hand up to stop the guards from attacking the small group of prisoners and walking forward to stop in front of Sayo and Robin. Tensing up at the creature's approach, he tugged Robin behind him slightly, eyes narrowed as he stared them down. "Why do you need Human DNA to restart your ship? Why would any ship need DNA to control it?" He demanded hotly, all traces of his usual happy-go-lucky self vanishing in the face of his anger.

"There were complications while rebuilding our craft."

Snorting at that, Sayo folded his arms across his chest, eyeing the alien and it's comrades cynically. "Complications? What kind of complications would require you to slaughter nearly a hundred humans to extract enough DNA to- Oh... Oh.. I get it." Suddenly the smile was back, sly and honestly amused at what he finally realized.

"You've inbred! Fifty years, and your species, what, lives an average life span of what? Ten, twenty? Long enough for your own DNA to change and warp." Now he chuckled, ignoring the low growl he was receiving from all sides. "Your own systems don't recognize you! That's why the doors are voice activation, that's why there's actual buttons to control this thing!" He waved at the Person Killer Thing behind them. "You're own ship doesn't recognize you as a member of your own species!"

Chris grimaced.

This was... quite a situation, wasn't it? She peered out from behind Sayo to watch the exchange with the dog people. Her wings tensed as they growled at them, looking over to Strawberry nervously. She didn't know if it was better to fight or to listen right now. Her eyebrows raised as she mouth-shrugged, glancing across the room at the clearly frightened humans. Some of them were so young. Poor things. They didn't deserve any of this.

Taking a hesitant and sloppy step forward, Chris held up her hand awkwardly to try to get a word in. "Hello. Uninformed bird girl here. I don't get it," she started, stepping out from behind Sayo completely. "How would human DNA get you into your ship any better than your own? You've got all these buttons, can't you reprogram it to match you? There's got to be a better way than slaughtering all these people," she begged, turning back towards her time lord. "Can't you do something about it?"

Reaching over, Sayo put a hand on Robin's shoulder and gently tugged her behind him again, this time with the hissed whisper of "Stay put." out of the corner of his mouth before advancing on the apparent leader. "No, they need it for something a little more complex. That's why they needed me." He murmured, thoughts flickering behind his eyes as he stared them down.

"No, they need my help. And I have an idea just what kind of help they need." Looking up slightly, he eyed the Dog Leader in front of him, an eyebrow raising up as they growled at him again. "Down boy, relax. I know what you need." Stepping back, he tugged Robin with him as he approached the chamber door, gaze landing on Dangerous Girl as they passed her. Tipping his head towards the door slightly, he winked and turned back to the leader. "You need my knowledge on Human DNA to reset the ship's biological mainframe. Overload it with foreign DNA and reintroduce your own when it shuts down. Turn it off and back on again." Shooting Strawberry another look, he raised an eyebrow.

"Perhaps the doorway should have been locked and not open. After all, what good is a door without a good lock?" Another wink and smile this time, turning to Robin, he tugged her close, lips resting near her ear so he could whisper. "When I say run, run."

"And furthermore..." He gently nudged Robin towards the group of prisoners as well as Dangerous Girl in the process, another look at the girl silently telling her to keep an eye on Robin. Backing up farther, he watched the guards slowly advance on him, the Leader taking front as he lead them closer to the People Killer Thing, slowly backing into the room as they began crowding around the doorway.

"But... On the other hand, when did I ever... Run with other's ideas?" He smirked, watching them point their spears at him and begin growling, his voice raising up to be heard over them and outside of the room.

This was f****** stupid.

Chris scowled as she was dragged back behind him. She was a big girl, she could handle herself. Besides the general aggressive tone, it seemed they were just having a lovely conversation. Standing behind this oaf didn't make her any safer.

Stumbling as she was pushed in Strawberry's direction, she gave the girl a confused look. Glancing around at the humans surrounding them, she felt in an odd place. She was never usually in charge of things, but now she was the one with the instructions. All these people were way taller than her, too, which was a thought lurking in the back of her mind. She leaned towards Strawberry to tell her the news, but whoops, he'd already called it, so off she went.

"Come on," she whispered harshly, not knowing if this was meant to be a stealthy escape or not. She flew towards the doors and skidded to a landing outside of them, holding it open for the rest of them to escape. It seemed majority of the group got the idea and ran after her, but she motioned for them to follow anyway. "Get out here, come on!" She leaned back as people started coming through, hoping Strawberry knew what she was meant to do, because she sure didn't have a clue.

Once they made a break for the door, Sayo yanked a crowbar from his pocket and held it out in front of the glass container full of DNA. "One move towards that door and my friends, and I smash this into pieces and break your... Person Killer Thing!" He threatened, eyes gleaming slightly when they froze in place and slowly turned back to look at him with murder in their dull eyes. "That's what I thought. Now tell me, why should help you after all you've done to these people? These good people that took you in, that gave you what you needed to fix your ship and gave you a place to stay until you were able to leave again!" He shouted this time, now that Robin was out of sight, he let his good cheer slip completely away, every muscle tense as he narrowed his eyes dangerously.

"Tell me, tell me why I should. Then ask me if I care."

The Leader made to take a step forward only to stop when he moved the crowbar a bit farther back, preparing to swing when he did. "We had need, they provided."

"They provided? You stole those people from their homes against their will!" He roared, hands shaking slightly as he leveled a dark glare on the group in front of him. "They provided, we took. In the end, we needed more."

"You needed- You have no need for any of this!" Resisting the urge to stamp his foot like a child, Sayo swallowed thickly and took a deep breath to try and calm his temper. "You took my friend, you threatened Robin of all people. I will not forgive you so easily."

"We do not require forgiveness, we require knowledge. You have knowledge." The leader growled at him, looking like he was tempted to take a step forward but eyed the crowbar and stayed still. "Knowledge, you knew you needed to reboot the machine but you have no idea how to? Then why do this in the first place! Why kill all those people if you had no idea how or even if you would be able to at all!" Cocking the crowbar back over his shoulder, Sayo sent them all a dark look. "You have one chance, one word is all it will take to calm my temper and get my help. Get it wrong and well.." He looked back over at the container, a slight smirk playing on his lips as he glanced at them again. "I'm sure you understand."

They fell silent, ears twitching on the tops of their heads as they stared at him in complete silence, if he didn't know better, he would have asssumed them dead if not for the movement and faint sounds of breathing.

"Help." The leader finally said, staring straight at Sayo as they spoke. "Help us."

Letting the crowbar slide down off his shoulder, Sayo eyed them silently for a moment, watching their postures relax ever so slightly before snorting through his nose. "Sorry, wrong answer." Lifting it back up quickly, he smashed it into the glass container, spilling the sludge out onto the floor and turned to the console, fingers twitching over them quickly as he fiddled with them, eyes focused on it while the dog people behind him began to crowd into the chamber, all of them attempting to save some if not all of the DNA in a panicked state of mind.

Turning around, he came face to snout with the Leader, teeth bared in a very wolf like manner. Staring into his eyes, Sayo gave no outward show of emotion as he stared. "You were wrong." He finally stated, watching the dog flinch back when he lifted the crowbar up slightly in his anger. "You should have apologized. Not begged for help." With that, he bolted around the leader and slipped through the crowd before he could grab him and bolted for the door. "Dangerous Girl, I really hope you're there!" He cried, reaching for the handle and yanking it open with a look of surprise to see everyone still there.

"Oh. I said to lock the door, what part of what I said did you not understand?" He groaned, rubbing his head before hearing a loud alarm blaring around them. "Ah! Run!" Grabbing both of their hands, he drug them behind him as he ran past the crowd of prisoners with a quick call to them. "Move it! Unless you want to be blown into bits!"

Chris held up her hands in confusion, offering Strawberry nothing but a horribly lost expression. "I don't know! He's really stupid," she complained, trying to keep out of the way of the civilians filing out. As soon as the last one escaped, she lunged for the door, slamming it shut. She took hold of the handle and leaned back, knowing this wasn't exactly 'locking' anything, but it was the best she had. There wasn't exactly a very clear locking mechanism on this thing.

A few moments later, after some very concerning sounds of commotion and growling, the door flew open, leaving her stumbling into Sayo as he shouted. "F***!" She had absolutely no time to react and yelped as he grabbed her wrist and drug her forward, leaving her talons scrambling on the floor as she flapped her wings desperately. Tugging her hand away, she flew forward of her own accord, glancing back to make sure the others were close by. Chest heaving, she zoomed for the way she remembered being taken, cursing the depths of this building and the time it was taking them to get out of here. "Holy f****** s***, what did you do?!" she called back breathlessly.

"Not like it will do much good in about... Oh, thirty seconds? Did I mention run!" He shouted, picking up speed as he lengthened his strides to full out sprinting down the corridor. "And I may have looped the residual energy back into the engine. Over heat the drive and kapow!" He added with a manic grin in Robin's direction. "You really should have locked that door though, once it blows all of that energy is going to travel through the path of least resistance, say for instance the one we're on?"

Spotting a fork, he grabbed the corner of the wall and slid around the right path, nearly slamming into the wall opposite due to how fast he was going. "Pick it up! We have twenty seconds before we're Barbecue!" Glancing over his shoulder, Sayo counted the slaves behind them, keeping track as they ran behind the threesome. "Robin! Up ahead, the door we're looking for will have a boarder of glowing blue, open it because I don't think stopping is an option for any of us!"

Looking up at her, he grinned and tipped his head towards the hallway in front of them. "Use those wings, Lady Love! Show me what you got!"

Chris' eyes widened as she noticed Sayo going the other way and skid to a landing, wheezing loudly. Using the wall to guide her, she spun herself around and took off again, speeding down the corridor he'd taken. Looking down to the absolute madman, she raised her eyebrows at the order to fly ahead and grab the door (and the name 'Lady Love' - who the f***??). She'd only barely caught up from that mistake? She doubted she would be fast enough not to cause some kind of pause in their escape, but she'd be damned if she didn't try. Rolling her eyes in frustration, she put her effort into soaring ahead, keeping her eyes peeled for the blue-bordered door. 

Panting heavily, she let out a small noise of hope as she noticed the glow. Glancing behind her, she felt almost confident in the gap she'd left between her and the rest of the people she was about to save. Oh god, how many lives were in her hands right now? No time to care. She pushed herself as hard as she could go, trying to figure out which way the door opened as she approached it. She couldn't see any hinges, what did that mean? How much time was she going to waste if she slammed into this thing? How much would she waste if she stopped to try and pull it? Too late, she was mere meters from the door and it was go time!

Shutting her eyes tightly, Chris braced herself as she flew into the door full force, knocking it open and, in the process, herself to the ground. She rolled for a few feet before she looked up and noticed where she was. "Holy f***, I did it," she panted breathlessly, looking back to see the exit she'd made for the rest of them. Holy f****** s***. 

Okay, but sitting like a duck next to this building wasn't a great idea either. Grunting in annoyance, she struggled to her feet and began flying again, trying to put as much space between her and that literal bomb as she could.

"That's my girl!" Sayo cheered loudly, skidding to a stop outside the door and turning to count the prisoners as they ran out behind him. "One, two, three-" He tapped them on the backs, pushing them in the general direction of the town as they passed him. "Ten! Eleven! And..." He peered through the doorway and almost had his head taken off by Dangerous Girl and the last prisoner as they shot through the opening. "Twelve! Good job, Dangerous Girl. Now to the village! Run!" Pushing them the same direction he pushed the others, Sayo watched to be sure they were running and ducked back inside the doorway, standing just inside as he watched down the hallway.

Just like he suspected, several of the Dog heads appeared in the dim light, running towards him as he stood in their way. Lifting his lips in a general smile, Sayo tucked his hands into his pockets and leaned a shoulder against the doorway as they slowly came to a stop and stood warily in front of him. "Good to see someone is trying to survive." He nodded at them, an eyebrow raised when they glanced over their shoulders then back at him. "No no, don't try to run. A little chat is all I want."

"The leader." One of them finally spoke up, the voice faintly feminine in cadence. "The Leader did not consult any of us."

"Consult you..? Your leader made his own decisions then." Sayo straightened up, head tipping to the side as he studied the two in front of him. "So you abandoned him and the others?"

"We do not approve of this method!" The other one growled, obviously male from the deep, rough sound. "We do not wish harm."

"Hm, interesting." Reaching up, Sayo tugged his lower lip in thought, watching the two Dog people in front of him shift nervously for a moment then stepped aside. "Run, run and don't look back on this place."

Without a glance at him, both of them bolted out of the ship, making for the water in the distance. Faintly he wondered if it was a good idea in the first place to even let one go, but... He winced and backed out of the ship when the first explosion sounded deep inside, turning around to chase after the group of people into town. Despite everything that happened, he knew he wouldn't sleep well at  night knowing he possibly annihilated a species without a little grace.

Chris huffed, turning her head over her shoulder to see that the others had gotten out safely. With that in mind, and a fairly acceptable distance between her and the building, she skid to a landing in the sand, falling on her butt in the process. She didn't bother getting up - that was tiring and the sand was warm. She watched as the frantic energy of the crowd dissipated as they realized where they were. They were all slowing down as they spotted the civilization. She noticed some children would tag along with adults they probably didn't know so that they could find their way back safely. Smiling, Chris put a hand to her chest to feel how fast her heart was beating. It was like a little hummingbird in there.

Her panting was finally starting to near its end, and she noticed the two dog people escaping ahead of Sayo. Now that was more of a Sonya thing to do. For whatever reason, those two must have deserved their lives, and she was glad this new face was going to keep up with its occasional mercy. Maybe she could get used to him after all. Except...

"Never call me Lady Love again!" she shouted in his direction, holding up her middle finger pathetically before letting in drop - along with the rest of her body - as she succumbed to exhaustion. As annoying as sand in her feathers was going to be, later, she could not find a single s*** to give about it right this second.

Running up behind Strawberry, Sayo came to a stop beside Robin, smiling down at her as if he didn't just run the equivalent of a mile across sand. "I can't promise you that any more than I can promise you I won't regenerate ever again, Lady Love." He paused and glanced over at Strawberry, a hand clapping her on the shoulder with the same cheerful smile. "You did wonderful back there, Dangerous Girl! I can see why grumpy keeps you around..." Trailing off, his gaze slid back over to Robin, a fond smile morphing the one he already had on his face. "I might just change my tune about going about it alone."

Crouching down beside Robin, he held out a hand to her, a slight chuckle falling from his lips as he offered her help back to her feet again. "Come on then, Robin. More things to do, but more importantly, we have to get Dangerous Girl here back where she belongs in London where grumpy last saw her." Turning to look at the girl over his shoulder, Sayo winked at her playfully, trying, one last time, to rile her up and get something other than confused or angry silence out of her. What fun was a companion if you couldn't aggravate them a bit? Was that just him? Maybe... Eyes shifted back down to Robin now, a thoughtful look flickering across his face.

Then again, he usually annoyed the Doctor.

Trust... Huh.