From One Universe to Another

Robin's eyes widened and she had to force herself not to shout. That didn't work. "What?! I'm not his daughter!" She had half a mind to run up and punch Sonya for that, but she simply scowled at her, figuring she had attracted enough attention with her yelling anyway. Apparently she was right, because down the hall, a rather chubby man in a suit ran out of his office, "Who are you lot? What are you doing here?!" The man frowned, "I'm callin' the manager!" Robin giggled nervously, "Oops? Time to run?"

"Actually," the Meta-crisis Doctor said as he put up one hand to stop the man from running off to report them. "I just work up there, so that's probably why you've never seen me too much. I just brought the family over to meet the boss. Little family outing, you know. She wouldn't stop badgering me until she got to see where Daddy worked," he continued as he briefly placed a hand on Robin's head. He nodded slightly at the perplexed look on the chubby man's face.

"So don't bother, I'm going to see the manager anyway. Or the manager, of the manager, of the manager..." he trailed off as he walked right by the man, heading for the elevator at the far end of the wall. He waved his hand up in the air, the other man staring after him as he marched into the elevator. Closing the doors, he pulled out the sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the controls.

"Well there's a top top floor, and a bottom bottom floor, both locked...which do you want to go to first?" he asked as he looked at the others, as if it were some kind of field trip. "Bottom always has deep dark secrets though, unless you're the type to hide things in plain sight..." The sonic screwdriver activated as it unlocked the lift, and it began to move.

"Family outing?" Sonya questioned idly once they were closed in and no one could hear. "Honestly, passes off Robin here, but how do you expect to pass us off? Mal being your wife and I'm the annoying sister of yours? I rather like that idea, I'd be a brilliant aunt. Always taking her neice on random adventures, bringing her home with some sort of alien pet that will either explode or turn into something horrible..." She trailed off, deep in thought before shaking her head sharply and returning to the conversation at hand. "Right then, Mal is the wife, I'm the sister and aunt. Love it. Onward and upwar- well Downward I suppose."

Turning back to face the elevator doors, she folded her hands into the pockets on her jacket and fell silent, a small smile on her face as she ignored the three in the little car with her for the rest of the trip to the basement. Honestly, she had no idea if she said anything offensive or embarrassing, she was just rambling like she always did.

"Wh-what? Wife? No, no, no, no, no, no! Stop saying stuff like this! I would never be his wife, no offence, man. And Robin my kid? No! I don't even like kids. No offence, again.. I meant having kids or the thought of raising them and all. Plus look at me and look at her, we don't even look that far a part in age. People would get suspicious! I guess I could pass as the step mom... but still no! God... that is just.. not cool, man. Jeez." Mal grumbled and crossed her arms, looking so not impressed as she glared at the elevator door. Well at least this was a good distraction from the fact she didn't like elevators. Bad things could happen in elevators and they were small and crampy if they ever stopped and never opened. Oh god, there were the nerves she was waiting for!

"W-wait are we going to the basement? No! God no! Get me off this thing." She started to panic, smacked the buttons to try and make the elevator go up and away from the dim, dark, scary basement. Bad things happened in basements. Didn't these people ever watch movies?

Robin crossed her arms, not liking that they completely ignored her the first time she said that SHE WASN'T HIS DAUGHTER. Her eyes widened as Mal began to panic, pushing practically all of the buttons on the elevator. "Mal! Stop!" She reached out and grabbed the woman's wrists, turning her to look her in the eye. "Calm down. The basement is fine. It's nothing worse than what we usually see. Now calm. Down." Letting go of her hands, she sighed, crossing her arms again and staring at the door. "Well now we're going to have to wait forever for this thing to reach the basement because someone just had to pick all the floors above it, too." She sighed, looking up at Mal with a frown. Didn't she know that that was going to happen?

"Oi oi! Stop it!" the Meta-crisis Doctor raised his voice in minor annoyance. He continued buzzing with his sonic screwdriver as the lift moved downward, before he stuck it back in his pocket and rested his hand against the controls. "And no, it won't go to the above floors before the basement, we're already at the basement," he said, the last word coming out of his mouth as the elevator doors opened. A finger immediately punched the button to hold the door open. "It'll just go to the above floors AFTER we get out. And if there happen to be krillitanes, daleks, cybermen, and all you can cram into this floor down here, well...let's just say we'll have to hope there are stairs."

The room he stepped out in was dark, and light peeped in from somewhere around the dark shapes that lined the room. The room was surrounded by tall shelves, housing all kinds of equipment and other goods, that blocked him from seeing anyone in the immediate vacinity. He moved quietly, or as quietly as he could with three people following, through the rows and over to the many hallways. Picking a hallway that he thought would lead somewhere, he followed it to the end, of which was a conveniently locked door. And conveniently enough, he still had Sonya's screwdriver, which he was still trying to get his mind around. As soon as he gave it back to her, he made a mental note to program the Tardis to make him a new one.

He unlocked the door with ease, pushing it open to reveal yet another dark and gloomy room. He looked about, seeing no one and hearing nothing. He walked about the room, nearly stumbling around console high equipment and other metal objects on the floor, causing a great deal of clanging that might alert anyone to their presence.

"I found something!" he hollered suddenly as he took out the screwdriver and began buzzing it. "Can someone turn on the lights?" He waited a moment for someone to reach the light switch, which he had inadvertently passed, before the place flooded with light. He shielded his eyes with his arm as he squinted his eyes, before staggering back in shock at the equipment that stood before him.

"What? But that's...no way!"

Sonya blinked in surprise at the machine that stood in the middle of the room as she flicked the lights on. "No..." She muttered, striding forward and snatching her sonic from the Doctor to scan the keypad on the left side of what looked like a generator. After a few moments, she typed in a bypass code, bringing a computer terminal to life next to her. Tossing her sonic back over to him, she turned her attention to the screen as she dove into the base information files, reading everything in there. "It's a..." She cleared her throat, still not believing what she was reading.

"It's a time machine... A-a vortex manipulator cannibalized to send an entire planet back in time... The only ones unaffected would be the ones sitting inside, next to that generator." She managed to spit out, studying the blueprints that were saved into it's database. "That's the reasoning behind the restaurant, I told you, this building's workers ate here for lunch and dinner! They just got smart this time, instead of doing it at the same place, they kept them separate."

Turning around, she looked at the Doctor with a pained expression on her face. "They're going to send the Earth back... Back to when you were at the school with Rose and Sarah Jane. Whoever sits inside there plans on stopping you before you stop them in the past." She murmured quietly, studying his expression then gazing at the machine next to them. "I don't know if they plan on killing you, but if they do, you'll cease to exist, and you know it."

Mal was muttering cusses under her breath as she trailed behind the group. Her head whipped this way and that, every shadow she jumped at and swore some more. This was horrible! Why did she come? She tried to shake the regret off considering there was no way she could leave. Hell, even if there was a way she wouldn't branch off and go alone. Cowardice gripped her as a young child and refused to let go even now.

Upon entering the dark room, Mal was relieved when the Man-Doctor asked for light. Her hand immediately flew to the wall to snap it on. She had to shield her eyes for a bit but they soon adjusted and her eyes landed on the machine in front of them. Her jaw drop as she just stared and stared until Sonya explained what it was. "Th-that's possible? A whole freakin' planet? Oh my god... Oh my god. W-well on the bright side I can relive whatever crap was going on back then, right?" She didn't think that's how it worked but she was just saying whatever in order to distract herself from the distress.

Robin tiptoed slowly through the dark room, looking this way and that for anything that could make a noise. She wasn't scared or anything - okay, a bit - but if she tripped over something and made a huge clatter, she was sure the others would be mad. Especially Mal. Once into the other room, and after the lights were on, she froze. Looking to Sonya, she was glad she was explaining. She would have never understood what the heck that thing was. 

They got all that from a simple vortex manipulator? Okay, that was pretty impressive, no matter how deadly it was. So... they were going back in time for what exactly? To a school? Oh, to stop the Doctor, that made a bit more sense. Well they could always just... stop them, right? Stop the machine from working? Her eyes widened as she heard the last bit. "Wait what? He won't exist?" Looking over to the Doctor, she bit her lip. This was bad, then, so she forgave Mal for completely freaking out.

The Meta-crisis Doctor furrowed his brows as he stared at the contraption, the words of the others washing over his ears. The contraption that stood before him was...a monstrosity. How the krillitanes had hooked up a vortex manipulator to work on such a massive scale was a mystery. Had they had help? Possibly, but that didn't matter right now. Right now, what mattered was dismantling this machine. "Of course I'd cease to exist," he said in frustration. "But that isn't the point. If they finish what they started back then, everything will cease to exist. At least as we know it. They'll rewrite everything. This whole place, humanity, the universe, will be rewritten. You, you, you," the Doctor said, looking at each one of them in turn. "Might not even exist, or be somewhere else, or something else..." He trailed off as he opened up the computer casing, looking at the wires inside.

"Well there's no way to actually destroy it. Any attempt to mess with the vortex manipulator will send a time bio-feedback loop which will send you back in your own timestream to...who knows where, assuming it doesn't erase you completely, so DON'T, touch it!" he said, pointing in the general direction of Robin and Mal. He squatted down, beginning to unplug wires and plug them in elsewhere. Then he jumped up, and began rapidly typing on the computer, bringing up the program and interface. His face fell when he saw the countdown timer.

"Twenty minutes, this powers up in twenty minutes. So in twenty minutes, they'll be able to send the earth back. We don't have much time," he said as he ran his hands frustratedly through his hair. "We need to turn this thing into something else, instead of sending a pulse back with a single person..." He looked over at Sonya, Mal, and Robin. "You two, um, what were your names again?" He paused, before he waved at the exit. "Make sure no krillitanes are coming." He moved around to other parts of the contraption, much of which looked to be alien tech. "Maybe we can turn this into a receiving pulse," he finished, looking briefly over at Sonya as he began unplugging various things and rerouting others.

Sonya reached over and pulled her Sonic from his pocket with a wink. "Now your speaking my language, Doctor." She grinned and crouched down, removing the control panel and beginning to change the circuits to reroute the energy through several paths. "All we need to do is reverse the polarity the neutron flow." She added idly then clamped the sonic between her teeth and continued working quickly. Pulling it from her mouth, she attached a separate diode to another circuit, her eyes narrowing in concentration.

"So, still haven't figured me out, have you?" Sonya suddenly asked, trying to fill the silence with random words. She never could work in silence, it always caused her attention to waver away from the main task. "Because honestly, your Time Lord half figured it out... After I showed him that was. He didn't even know I existed honestly. The poor man, should have seen his face afterwards..." She laughed softly, thinking back to the maze where she first met him after growing up. "He met me once before you know... When I was just a child, only thirteen and living in an abandoned house on my own. Stuck around for a while, told me stories of his adventures." She fell silent once more, her fingers hesitating before she shook her head and continued with her work. "That's how I know about you, told me all about Donna and how you came about. I am sorry about that, I could tell by the pain on his face how much it hurt him to talk about it."

(THERE NAT, I SAID IT, HAPPY?)

Mal swallowed heavily, nodding dumbly as the Man-Doctor told her not to touch this or do that.  She did, however, manage to shoot him an annoyed glare when he mentioned watching the door.  Oh, that was never fun, that was dangerous and scary and usually held a risk of being injured.  Or panicking to the point of a heart attack.  "Mal.  It's Mal.  Though I don't see how that matters... you didn't seem to remember the first time."

Glancing at Robin she headed out to the exit and crept out the door, keeping a lookout for any movement or indication of someone approaching the room.  Hopefully the Man-Doctor and Sonya could figure out that machine before certain doom thrust itself upon the whole universe.  The thought caused her to pale in the face and she began to shake with anxiety once again.  Oh crap, why couldn't she remain ignorant about these things?  Ignorant was good.

Robin nodded, moving over to stand by Mal. The poor woman, she felt kinda bad for her, having to be in this situation right now. Looking over to her, she sighed, seeing how unnerved she looked. "They probably won't even come down here, Mal. It's fine." That was a lie. The machine was supposed to go off soon, she was actually a bit surprised that someone wasn't already down here, but whatever would make her feel better. 

Turning around for a moment, she tried to see through the darkness and into the illuminated room where the Doctor and Sonya were working. Whatever they were dong in there better work, or else a LOT of things were going to go wrong. She bit her lip and looked back towards the elevator, waiting for it to open and for creepy creatures to stroll out of it. Whatever Krillitanes looked like...

For once, the Doctor was quiet as he listened to Sonya's words. His hands were busy, and his eyes darted back and forth between each wire, and each circuit. He pulled out one capacitor, and plugged it in elsewhere, while unhooking one pair of wires and wrapping it around another connector. He snapped his fingers back as the circuit was completed, sending a slight electrical jolt. He'd had those before, but they didn't feel as potent, nor did they burn his fingers. He instinctively sucked the affected finger, before immediately getting back to work. He didn't give any appearance of having heard what Sonya said, as he worked, but her words still sunk in, causing his features to take on a slight frown along with his focused look.

"Donna..." he trailed off as he connected one cord into a socket, then paused, the frown growing heavier. "The timelines converged on her, and yet...it couldn't be. She wouldn't be able to handle all that timelord energy..." He continued, though at a slightly slower rate than before. Which was fast enough as it was. "Wouldn't know how to fix it, but erasing her memories of her time with me would save her. I imagine that's what he did."

He fell silent again, as he finished connecting wire after wire, until he was finally finished with his section. He moved onto another section, moving with the same quickness and precision, but finishing faster as it needed less work than the first. "I thought I was alone in the universe, until I met the Master again. He survived the Time War by using the chameleon arch and hiding at the end of the universe. And then he died, and then I was alone. And then Jenny...and..." he stopped, his voice cracking slightly as he fought himself to keep steady. "But it can't, there are no more timelords," he said, his gaze regarding Sonya rather bitterly.

He jammed the last diode in, before he jumped up. He inhaled sharply, putting all the waves of emotion behind him, as he bounded over to the computer console. "Alright, all done now," he said in his usual chipper voice. "One receiving pulse coming up," he said, his fingers typing randomly over the keyboard, his eyes darting back and forth, but most importantly, looking up to see how much time he had left.

Sonya nodded in silence, listening to him as he spoke, nearly blurting out who she was when his voice cracked with bitter sadness. "I can understand the feeling... My... My family, they abandoned me." She murmured quietly, her eyes locked on the screen as she placed it back into it's slot and studied the energy levels for a moment. Sucking in a deep breath, she debated on telling the man anyway, but before the words slipped out, she clamped her lips back together. Now was not the time to tell him, it was better to wait until they weren't fighting a race of aliens that wanted to create the universe in their image.

"We're good. Everything is stable..." Her ears perked slightly at a slight shuffling sound in the hallway. Spinning around, she motioned to Nat and Mal, indicating they needed to check and see if anyone was out there. Turning to face the Doctor, she flashed him a smile while tucking her sonic back into her pocket. "Come on then, might as well get to a proper hiding space to see how they think this is going to work, yeah?"

Mal heard the shuffle and the hair on the back of her neck stood straight up. A cold shiver ran up her back and she looked at Nat with wide eyes. Not good, so not good. She ducked behind a box and peaked over the top, spotting shadows dancing on the walls as whoever was creating them came closer and closer. Actually, there were several shadows. Four at most. With that she turned, grabbed Robin's wrist, and bound after Sonya. Her voice was very squeaky, very afraid, as she spoke, "F-four of them!" That was really all she could get out. Mal felt pathetic.. but there really wasn't anything to be done with that at this time.

Robin yelped as Mal grabbed her wrist and dragged her back to the room the others were working in. For a moment there, she thought it was one of the creatures, and that would have been very bad. Good thing it was just Mal being paranoid, because to be honest, she probably would have stayed just to get a better look. 

"What did they look like last time? Maybe we can try to get an idea of what we'll be fighting? It looked like they were heading in here." She shrugged, looking between the adults in the room. Gosh, sometimes being the only kid on a mission like this felt kind of demeaning. Oh well. "You guys finished or not?" She pointed to the machine, having no way to tell what they did to it.

With a final click of the keyboard, the new program was buried into the computer's subroutine. Hiding underneath all the layers of code, in case the krillitanes decided to check it over, but ready to take over once the machine was activated. He looked over at Sonya and grinned, before looking over at Mal and Robin as they came running. Mal looked white as a ghost, and Robin...Robin was curious and very much in control. She's a strange one, he mused as he regarded her from behind his glasses. Young, but surprisingly calm given the circumstances.

"Yes, machine is finished and ready to go," he said as he whipped the glasses off his face and put them into his pocket. "Last time they looked like bats, and had a very keen sense of hearing. Now? If they've been hiding out on earth, they may look human...and who knows what senses they might have. So I suggest we get out of here and..." he trailed off as he looked around the room. "Oh there's only one exit..." And with that he bounded out of the light towards the back of the room, where stacks of crates and dusty shelves remained. They were quite a distance from the machine, but if they had any special vision, they could be spotted. He settled himself behind one of the crates, snorting to get the loose dust out of his nostrils.

"Now, don't move, don't make a sound, or they might hear, or see, or smell you," he said quietly. His eyes flickered over to the doorway, where he watched four shadows moved into the room. With their owners following close behind, he inhaled slowly as he froze in place to watch.

Sonya settled down next to the Doctor, peering from behind the crates as she studied them. Narrowing her eyes, she watched as they made their way over to the machine and began to power it up. For the second time that day, she cursed his human ability to block any psychic contact. Glancing over at him out of the corner of her eye, she quirked her lips up slightly and brushed her hand over the back of is, establishing a mental contact with a large wave of psychic energy. 'Ha, I knew it. Don't know why I didn't do this earlier honestly.' She mused for a moment then returned to what it was that had bothered her enough to do this to the man, must have received quite a shock considering he's been thinking she was human this entire time.

'Anyway, back to the subject, right... If they've been on Earth this entire time, then who's to say they don't just look like humans. They take their favorite parts from whatever species they intergade themselves with.' Her eyes drifted over to the group of people working by the device, one typing on the computer, the other busy setting up the controls on the panel she had just replaced moments before. 'I know for a fact some of them liked the human form.'

Mal was sitting with a back against one of the crates. Both hands were clamped over her mouth to prevent herself from screaming or making any other stupid noise that could get the group of them in trouble. This wasn't exactly her definition of a good time but she was already stuck in this situation so it wasn't like she could get up and leave. Her eyes shifted over to Sonya and the Man-Doctor before she glanced at Robin. Oh man, what if the plan didn't work? All that fumbling around with their machine for nothing and then the universe will be... who knows what. That thought did nothing to settle Mal's racing heart.

Robin bit her lip, sitting as still as she could possibly be behind the crates. Glancing over at Mal, she could just tell she was freaking out. When wasn't she? Oh, if she blew this.... Her eyes moved from Mal to the machine - what she could see from where she was anyway, which was just a bit of the edge. So that was helpful. Looking over at Sonya and the Doctor, she was really starting to wonder what they were doing now.

((short reply is short :/ ))

He remained absolutely still, his breath catching slightly as he watched the figures move about. They definitely didn't look like bats, but then they could've been using a holographic projector to make them appear so. Though as far away as they were, it was hard to make out distinct differences, such as was the nose the same size, did they have big ears, and so forth. And so far, they didn't seem to notice the changes that had been made. How long did they have til it activated? Five? Less? If he recalled correctly, it had been roughly five when Mal and Robin had rushed over. He also wasn't one hundred percent sure the changes he made would work as he had intended them.

His thoughts were broken as he felt a hand brush over his. He looked over at the hand, then over at Sonya, meeting her gaze. Like a brush of affection, but it wasn't that which had gotten his attention, but the wave of psychic energy that had come with it. It was a technique he had used in the past, as a timelord, but not one his human self was capable of. His human body had barriers, and he had grown accostomed to the lack of a psychic link with the passing of his race that he no longer noticed. But where one door was open, one could cross from either side, and with the help of the psychic link, he tapped back into the knowledge of how to traverse it.

'You're telepathic.' It was stating the obvious, but he didn't want to go much further than that. It wasn't just telepathy, it was similar to timelord telepathy. The same way timelords conversed mentally with one another, only without needing physical contact. Obviously, she wasn't human, though he had already suspected she was much more than that. But a timelord was something of a stretch.

'Yeah, they probably look like humans. Been here long enough,' he responded mentally, his eyes moving back to focus on the group of humanoids at work. 'And the machine is powering up,' he added, as a loud hum began to reverberate through the storage room. How many minutes had it been now? He stared silently as the conduits about the machine began to light up, the hum growing even louder. And he watched as one of the group, a middle aged looking man, stepped between the machines and put on a headset, one that the Doctor knew tapped into his memories and timestream and allowed him to remember the past years while the earth went backwards. And then there was a bright flash of light from the machine, mostly blocked by the crates, before it faded, revealing the shape of something on the floor. The Doctor blinked, and he poked his head out from behind the stack of crates to get a better look.

"No way..." he breathed, words that weren't heard by the krillitanes as they began talking frustratedly between themselves at the machine's failure. "It can't be..." He hadn't expected that to happen, but there it was, his faithful companion from all those many years ago. K-9. "That's..." he began, but was interrupted as a sudden wave of searing pain ran through him. His jaw clamped shut as he reeled backwards from his cover, falling to the ground with a thud as he curled up slightly. Unfortunately, this time, the krillitanes seemed to have heard, as they stopped their arguing in favor of listening and looking about.

'Congradtulations on stating the obvious.' Sonya turned to the Doctor, an eyebrow arched up slightly in amuesment at his simple statement, but before she could add anything more, there was a flash that startled her, breaking her attention and concentration on him, dragging her eyes from his face and over to a metal dog sitting in the middle of the floor. A frown of confusion crossed her features just before the Doctor next to her stumbled back in shock, causing the metal shelving unit behind them to rattle loudly, drawing attention from the creatures in the room with them.

Turning to look over at him, she sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm the sudden temper that rose up in her, then turned back to face the creatures just as one turned it's oddly glowing eyes on them. Closing her eyes, she slowly got to her feet, hands raised over her head as she stepped out from behind the boxes. "Hello there, sorry, happen to be snooping, bad habit, but so hard to break. Couldn't help myself, big metal machine, didn't know wht it was for, so I just had to sit and wait for someone to operate it, yeah?" She grinned over at them as two of the creatures strode over and gripped her arms tightly, dragging her back to the machine and to the evident leader with slight hisses of warning as she began to protest to the tight grips on her arms.

"So your the ring leader, nice to meet you, I'm sonya. The Eavesdropper." Sonya grinned and tilted her head to the side, trying to focus on the man's face as he studied her curiously without a word. "Don't talk much? Or are you just speechless at my beauty?" She grinned at him, flashing him her best smile in hopes that the human form he took would be somewhat swayed and they decided not to eat her after all.

Mal was sitting still but seemed to go rigid when the machine began to hum. Oh, that just shot her nerves horribly. What if the plan didn't work? Wait.. what was the plan? Mal was now hyperventilating and let out a muffled squeak when the room flashed with light. Thank god no one heard that. The clatter caused the jittery girl to flinch dramatically and she whipped her head over to see the Man- Doctor had.. what? Passed out? Oh god...

And suddenly Sonya was standing and doing some form of surrender. Oh no.. why would she do that? What happened to the Man- Doctor? Seriously?! Mal didn't make any sound, her head was spinning as she peered from behind her hiding spot to watch Sonya and the Krillitanes. Oh god.. now Robin and her were going to have to find some way to help, right? What the hell were they capable of? Screw it, Mal almost wanted to remain where she was and just let what happens happen. But that was the cowards way out... Ha! Mal was a coward, she would easily be able to sit this out...