He stepped out of the doors and coughed. Well, this was certainly a time when the sewers under Paris were more active weren't they? Well, that meant he wasn't in the precise time he'd aimed for - but that was quite fine. The TARDIS arrived when and where she needed to. He slipped the key into his pocket, peering into the dim around him.
Now about that strange energy source he'd detected...
There had been an adventuring party in the catacombs and they heard the noise of the arriving Tardis. They hadn't known what it was, but they'd heard it. And hadn't wasted time arguing. Well, some of them hadn't. As soon as the door opened, Violetta slipped inside unseen.
What he could see as he peered around was a shadow in a corner of the area he was in. A crouched figure.
What he could hear was voices from around that corner. Voices and... an odd sound. Very odd. It was almost like humming, but not mechanical and not quite musical, and it seemed to shift very nearly exactly as the other sounds - the voices mostly - did. As if it was a near real time response to every sound around it. Because of course it was.
But the Heterodyning wasn't the only sound that might have been of interest. Because what was being said was also... not terribly typical for any Paris he was likely to have known.
"Ho, yez, all de time. Usually hyu hear it bevore tinks go boom."
"Well that sounds... fun..." a comparatively human voice said, sounding unsure.
"Oh stop being such a stick in the mud! It'll be a blast!" another human male voice said. "Get it? Blast!"
The figure in the shadows moved, as if that had been a cue, her eyes on the Doctor as she stepped into the dim light. Green hair ran down her back. She wore a headband with what looked like a grim face on it, a dark shirt that looked like a very short tucked in double breasted coat and brown trousers. Other than the hair band, which had some sort of connection/communication technology behind it what she wore wasn't of much note. The two odd shaped swords in her hands, however... Those could be a problem. She had them crossed in front of her, watching him from the V the blades made, her motions smooth and ready, clearly a trained fighter.
But of course she was the one he was supposed to notice.
"Well?" Zeetha asked, looking at him, watching him. But if he thought the question was aimed at him he'd find himself mistaken as a thin blade was suddenly at his throat, the woman holding it otherwise behind him, between him and his Tardis.
"Sparky for sure. That thing is bigger on the inside somehow," Violetta said calmly. "We'll bring him to her and she can decide if he's for or against us."
The aggravating part? He completely missed the woman slipping into the TARDIS behind him. It took until he investigated the other two for him to realize what indeed was going on. And what might surprise them in turn was his air of calm but aggrieved proprietorship over the whole thing.
"Oh, for...will whichever of you does the thinking rather than the threatening kindly explain what the meaning of this is?"
His hands went to his hips, "And I'm not going anywhere with strangers who think that threatening with sharp objects is a proper way of blasted well saying hello. You should be ashamed of yourselves, going about like this."
"Good control for a Spark," Zeetha said, smirking a bit.
"Oh most of them can fake it for a while," Violetta said.
As for the noise around the corner... Heterodyning meant that Agatha very much did NOT hear his voice, and wasn't consciously aware of what was going on. But when world-sized entities decided to kidnap people and wipe their memories before sending them home... they didn't account for Sparks with tech on their necks that handled mental tampering as a matter of course, and they didn't account for dingbots.
Dingbot prime N - Nautilus edition - heard his voice. KNEW his voice. the tiny dingbot popped a propeller out of its top and flew around the corner.
"Zeetha," Violetta warned.
"I see it," Zeetha said, even though she hadn't turned to look and it was, in theory, behind her. But then he's clever enough to be aware of the fact that swords are polished metal, which can be reflective.
The dingbot raced back the way it came. "Pretty sure you're about to meet the one of us who does the thinking," Zeetha said with a hint of a grin. As the Heterodyning... stopped.
He harrumphed, emphatically. "Yes, well, that will be a dramatic improvement. And will you put those blades down like a pair of civilized beings? Honestly, even my enemies usually try to make my acquaintance first."
They also really shouldn't have let him put his hands in his pockets. Because that meant there was a Plan B in place. But that's what the talking so often masked.
Before Zeetha could comply, or reply more likely, Agatha came around the corner. She stopped for a half second if that, then launched herself at him. "DOCTOR!" she yelled as she glomped him. The blade at his throat was gone just the second before it would have been a danger to the redhead.
"You're here! You did come to help!" there was so much relief and joy in her voice.
She released him from the hug and nodded. "Right. Sorry. This is Zeetha and Violetta. Dingbot you know already of course. And the others are in the next hall. Is Billy with you?" she asked, hyper now. She touched her necklace as she tried to peer behind him. "Did you pick him up before coming here, Doctor?" Then she blinked and looked at the Tardis. And wondered why it was here...
"No, not at all," she said. Okay, so it was, a little. She missed her friend. And while she liked the Doctor, she knew he still wasn't fully comfortable with her. Billy was. And he was also brilliant in his own way and had a unique view on things that differed from hers, the Doctor's, and Connie's.
"I have the notes I made from the notes you made, but I never did learn the language you wrote in, so there might be gaps here and there. We're trying to find Doctor Zardeliv, who we believe came this way. Like you he's an expert in temporal sciences. Unless you think you could deactivate the time bomb yourself now that you're here?"
Violetta had slipped off to quietly update the others, Zeetha had lowered her blades - but hadn't sheathed them yet - and was leaned against a wall, watching. Dingbot was now on Agatha's shoulder, half hidden in her hair. The weasel popped its orange toothy snout out of her pocket then retreated in again.
He was getting there. She was chaotic, but it was a positive sort. By and large. Like if the Master could get over his ego for three bloody minutes and do something constructive. In fact, he had theories about her - namely that, at some point in her ancestry, Time Lord DNA had been spliced in. Either deliberately or on accident.
But she also had to be watched. The wrong circumstances could topple her onto a path down which only heartbreak and tragedy lay.
"Well, let's have a look, then. An actual time bomb, I mean really. Such a useless weapon. The man is a foolish meddler - he has no idea what happens if he tore a hole in the time-space continuum." He shook his head, tsking.
"You don't mind if I dispose of it after?" It was phrased as a question, but with certain harmonics that suggested it wasn't really. "Can't have that sort of thing laying around."
He pointed at Zeetha's blades. "If one of them were to go off, you'd find those very busily employed and to no good use, let me tell you."
"There are things beyond, you see," he intoned, as a general lesson for all. "Between the universes, between moments of time. They'd flood in and consume this universe like starving rats on a carcass."
"We should probably find Doctor Z first, so we have both of you," Agatha said, considering that. "But sure, if you want to take the time bomb once it is deactivated you're welcome to it. Do you know how we can get into its sphere of influence?" She started to pace small tight circles, fiddling with some metal in her hands. "I still need to figure out how to save Tarvek. Without Baymax my best bet is to cut off his head and hope his brain is intact, unless..."
She snapped two bits of metal into each other as her head shot up. "Doctor, instead of destroying the bomb outright, can you shrink it to make a stasis field around Tarvek's brain and heart? Then we can draw a sample of the poison out of his blood to experiment with to find an antidote." she went back to tinkering, accepting a tool from one dingbot as she paced. "That leaves us with the Gil problem to fix, as well as my mother. But Tarvek can help with the first, and Tarvek and Gil together can help with the other. As well as you, of course, Doctor. And if you're Ascended we can find and pick up Billy, Connie, Leia, and Nita. They'd all help."
Even having known Leia as long as she now had, she still missed the part where bringing General Leia Organa to Mechanichsburg would very much NOT go well. For anyone.
She snapped another piece into place, a new device forming in her hands as she paced. And waited for his answer.
Zeetha shrugged, sheathing her blades. "I get attacked, I fight. She gets attacked, I fight and then duck."
Violetta snorted. "When Sparks fight I skip joining in and go straight for the popcorn snails."
He rubs his chin as she speaks, letting it wash over him. It's best that way. He likes getting a word in edgewise, after all.
"Well, the best way in would be the TARDIS. I doubt any temporal stasis field or any other defences he's worked up will slow the old girl down. Bit risky, but then again with what we're dealing with..."
He looks at the others, chuckling.
"Brave words. But you have no idea the horrors this could unleash as unreality cascades into the universe. Or worse, anti-time. That's the problem, you see - I've not seen this blasted thing, I don't know what sort of damage it can do. I'd like to think that someone at this level of advancement - no offense - couldn't rip a hole in things, but that's not an assumption I can make."
Agatha considered that as she built... whatever it was she was building. "Perhaps that's for the best then, but we do need to make sure we keep Tarvek from dying too permanently once we break the aura of effect." Another piece was snapped into place. "The Tardis though... I thought that was just a weird house where Connie lived with the other person who just called himself The Doctor." So she wasn't sure what the Tardis could do.
Once again she wished Connie were with her, Connie practically lived in the thing half the time, till the people calling themselves The Doctor started leaving the City.
She shook her head. "I don't think it ever came up." Though if he had told her while she was building something, it is possible that she just didn't process.
"Wow. How did you build that?" she asked, eyes sparkling with a million ideas of how she might try to do that.
The small clank of the Castle came over, grumpy. "You do not need a time traveling anything, you have a perfectly evil Castle willing to smash and kill people for you."
"No killing," she said absently and reflexively, not really paying attention.
"Can time be... eaten?" the Doom Train clank added, as it too joined them.
"Yes," he replied to the clank, absently, "but trust me when I say you don't want it to be. Things happen that would destroy your mind long before they consumed your very essence. As for the TARDIS, no, but she's been my home for a good few centuries now. Marvelous, the Old Girl."
Agatha nodded. "After all this planning, it feels good to finally be moving at last!" she said as she snapped the last bit into place on what turned out to be... another dingbot. "Alright, we have a lot to do. And you have to meet the rest of the team. We need to decide if we're splitting off to still look for Doctor Zarldiev a the same time, in case we fail at Mechanichsburg, if we're finding him first, or coming back here after."
"It might be better if we split up," Violetta said. "The problem is... bot teams could use the same people. How do we decide who goes with which group? Because no way any of us are leaving Lady Heterodyne alone with an unknown Spark, but if we are splitting up... There is clearly another Smoke Knight down here, and uncle Tick Tock is less likely to shoot at me than you guys."
"Given your family," Zeetha began.
Violetta rolled her eyes. "Fine, he is less likely to shoot and HIT me."
"I'd much prefer we not have to deal with any shooting at all," he says, with a clear sense that he finds guns rather distasteful.
"But you know this situation better than I do - but finding him won't be difficult. The weapon's signature will be radiating forward and back in time from the moment of its theoretical explosion. Now, the task will be to stop things before it becomes a fixed point - when I can't do anything about it."
Agatha blinked then shook her head. "The one we're looking for isn't the one who set off the bomb. We KNOW where the Baron is. The center of it all. We're looking for Violetta's uncle Tick Tock, another Doctor who specializes in time, like you. I'm not sure what a fixed point is, but if you think we need to hurry..."
Dimo came around the corner.
"Ho, yez, ve agree. Hit iz time dat ve all getz movink. Doze tree vill continue un here. If hyu," to the Doctor, "ken get uz beck here after ve save de town, den ve von't mizz too much of de fighting. Hy tink ve should get Maxim and de odders bevore ve storm de town, ve vill need all de strength ve ken get vell hyu go ovv und do the shmot schtuff."
"A good idea if we can afford the delay?" she asked, looking to the Doctor, kind of forgetting that the Jägers could take one a bit off guard when they show up without warning.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-03-14 04:16 pm (UTC)Now about that strange energy source he'd detected...
no subject
Date: 2021-03-15 07:11 am (UTC)What he could see as he peered around was a shadow in a corner of the area he was in. A crouched figure.
What he could hear was voices from around that corner. Voices and... an odd sound. Very odd. It was almost like humming, but not mechanical and not quite musical, and it seemed to shift very nearly exactly as the other sounds - the voices mostly - did. As if it was a near real time response to every sound around it. Because of course it was.
But the Heterodyning wasn't the only sound that might have been of interest. Because what was being said was also... not terribly typical for any Paris he was likely to have known.
"Ho, yez, all de time. Usually hyu hear it bevore tinks go boom."
"Well that sounds... fun..." a comparatively human voice said, sounding unsure.
"Oh stop being such a stick in the mud! It'll be a blast!" another human male voice said. "Get it? Blast!"
The figure in the shadows moved, as if that had been a cue, her eyes on the Doctor as she stepped into the dim light. Green hair ran down her back. She wore a headband with what looked like a grim face on it, a dark shirt that looked like a very short tucked in double breasted coat and brown trousers. Other than the hair band, which had some sort of connection/communication technology behind it what she wore wasn't of much note. The two odd shaped swords in her hands, however... Those could be a problem. She had them crossed in front of her, watching him from the V the blades made, her motions smooth and ready, clearly a trained fighter.
But of course she was the one he was supposed to notice.
"Well?" Zeetha asked, looking at him, watching him. But if he thought the question was aimed at him he'd find himself mistaken as a thin blade was suddenly at his throat, the woman holding it otherwise behind him, between him and his Tardis.
"Sparky for sure. That thing is bigger on the inside somehow," Violetta said calmly. "We'll bring him to her and she can decide if he's for or against us."
no subject
Date: 2021-03-16 03:55 am (UTC)"Oh, for...will whichever of you does the thinking rather than the threatening kindly explain what the meaning of this is?"
His hands went to his hips, "And I'm not going anywhere with strangers who think that threatening with sharp objects is a proper way of blasted well saying hello. You should be ashamed of yourselves, going about like this."
Sorry for the weird icons, lol. she has better ones, just tight on cash for paids atm
Date: 2021-03-16 09:51 am (UTC)"Oh most of them can fake it for a while," Violetta said.
As for the noise around the corner... Heterodyning meant that Agatha very much did NOT hear his voice, and wasn't consciously aware of what was going on. But when world-sized entities decided to kidnap people and wipe their memories before sending them home... they didn't account for Sparks with tech on their necks that handled mental tampering as a matter of course, and they didn't account for dingbots.
Dingbot prime N - Nautilus edition - heard his voice. KNEW his voice. the tiny dingbot popped a propeller out of its top and flew around the corner.
"Zeetha," Violetta warned.
"I see it," Zeetha said, even though she hadn't turned to look and it was, in theory, behind her. But then he's clever enough to be aware of the fact that swords are polished metal, which can be reflective.
The dingbot raced back the way it came. "Pretty sure you're about to meet the one of us who does the thinking," Zeetha said with a hint of a grin. As the Heterodyning... stopped.
No worries!
Date: 2021-03-18 09:26 pm (UTC)They also really shouldn't have let him put his hands in his pockets. Because that meant there was a Plan B in place. But that's what the talking so often masked.
Re: No worries!
Date: 2021-03-18 09:42 pm (UTC)"You're here! You did come to help!" there was so much relief and joy in her voice.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-20 01:11 am (UTC)"Oh, it's you! Hullo, there! Oof!"
Well, she certainly hadn't lost any of her enthusiasm. Probably for the best.
"When called, and all that - though the power spike was fairly distinctive. I take it these...others are with you?"
no subject
Date: 2021-03-20 01:18 am (UTC)(I can't think of who Billy is now, drat)
Date: 2021-03-20 05:15 am (UTC)The Blue Power Ranger, lol.
Date: 2021-03-20 05:20 am (UTC)"I have the notes I made from the notes you made, but I never did learn the language you wrote in, so there might be gaps here and there. We're trying to find Doctor Zardeliv, who we believe came this way. Like you he's an expert in temporal sciences. Unless you think you could deactivate the time bomb yourself now that you're here?"
Violetta had slipped off to quietly update the others, Zeetha had lowered her blades - but hadn't sheathed them yet - and was leaned against a wall, watching. Dingbot was now on Agatha's shoulder, half hidden in her hair. The weasel popped its orange toothy snout out of her pocket then retreated in again.
I feel like I was handed a different script. :P But I can roll with this. :P
Date: 2021-03-20 10:50 pm (UTC)But she also had to be watched. The wrong circumstances could topple her onto a path down which only heartbreak and tragedy lay.
"Well, let's have a look, then. An actual time bomb, I mean really. Such a useless weapon. The man is a foolish meddler - he has no idea what happens if he tore a hole in the time-space continuum." He shook his head, tsking.
"You don't mind if I dispose of it after?" It was phrased as a question, but with certain harmonics that suggested it wasn't really. "Can't have that sort of thing laying around."
He pointed at Zeetha's blades. "If one of them were to go off, you'd find those very busily employed and to no good use, let me tell you."
"There are things beyond, you see," he intoned, as a general lesson for all. "Between the universes, between moments of time. They'd flood in and consume this universe like starving rats on a carcass."
CRAU confusions are fun!
Date: 2021-03-21 04:29 am (UTC)She snapped two bits of metal into each other as her head shot up. "Doctor, instead of destroying the bomb outright, can you shrink it to make a stasis field around Tarvek's brain and heart? Then we can draw a sample of the poison out of his blood to experiment with to find an antidote." she went back to tinkering, accepting a tool from one dingbot as she paced. "That leaves us with the Gil problem to fix, as well as my mother. But Tarvek can help with the first, and Tarvek and Gil together can help with the other. As well as you, of course, Doctor. And if you're Ascended we can find and pick up Billy, Connie, Leia, and Nita. They'd all help."
Even having known Leia as long as she now had, she still missed the part where bringing General Leia Organa to Mechanichsburg would very much NOT go well. For anyone.
She snapped another piece into place, a new device forming in her hands as she paced. And waited for his answer.
Zeetha shrugged, sheathing her blades. "I get attacked, I fight. She gets attacked, I fight and then duck."
Violetta snorted. "When Sparks fight I skip joining in and go straight for the popcorn snails."
OOOO, Agatha could go for some snails.
Yes, but this many meant it took me a few days to figure out a reply. :P
Date: 2021-03-25 04:42 am (UTC)"Well, the best way in would be the TARDIS. I doubt any temporal stasis field or any other defences he's worked up will slow the old girl down. Bit risky, but then again with what we're dealing with..."
He looks at the others, chuckling.
"Brave words. But you have no idea the horrors this could unleash as unreality cascades into the universe. Or worse, anti-time. That's the problem, you see - I've not seen this blasted thing, I don't know what sort of damage it can do. I'd like to think that someone at this level of advancement - no offense - couldn't rip a hole in things, but that's not an assumption I can make."
Gyah, sorry about that!
Date: 2021-03-25 09:37 am (UTC)Once again she wished Connie were with her, Connie practically lived in the thing half the time, till the people calling themselves The Doctor started leaving the City.
Re: Gyah, sorry about that!
Date: 2021-03-26 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-26 03:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-27 01:19 am (UTC)"In short: a living ship, traveling the time-space continuum. She can get me anywhere in the universe, yesterday or a thousand years from now."
no subject
Date: 2021-03-27 04:32 am (UTC)The small clank of the Castle came over, grumpy. "You do not need a time traveling anything, you have a perfectly evil Castle willing to smash and kill people for you."
"No killing," she said absently and reflexively, not really paying attention.
"Can time be... eaten?" the Doom Train clank added, as it too joined them.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-27 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-28 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-31 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-01 06:31 am (UTC)"It might be better if we split up," Violetta said. "The problem is... bot teams could use the same people. How do we decide who goes with which group? Because no way any of us are leaving Lady Heterodyne alone with an unknown Spark, but if we are splitting up... There is clearly another Smoke Knight down here, and uncle Tick Tock is less likely to shoot at me than you guys."
"Given your family," Zeetha began.
Violetta rolled her eyes. "Fine, he is less likely to shoot and HIT me."
no subject
Date: 2021-04-03 03:43 am (UTC)"But you know this situation better than I do - but finding him won't be difficult. The weapon's signature will be radiating forward and back in time from the moment of its theoretical explosion. Now, the task will be to stop things before it becomes a fixed point - when I can't do anything about it."
no subject
Date: 2021-04-04 07:20 am (UTC)Dimo came around the corner.
"Ho, yez, ve agree. Hit iz time dat ve all getz movink. Doze tree vill continue un here. If hyu," to the Doctor, "ken get uz beck here after ve save de town, den ve von't mizz too much of de fighting. Hy tink ve should get Maxim and de odders bevore ve storm de town, ve vill need all de strength ve ken get vell hyu go ovv und do the shmot schtuff."
"A good idea if we can afford the delay?" she asked, looking to the Doctor, kind of forgetting that the Jägers could take one a bit off guard when they show up without warning.