Doctor Who: Panic Moon Ch. 15

'... Can I burn it down? It's made of wood,' Ren deadpanned. 'We came here for something that's wooden.'

'I... Would prefer it if you didn't,' Came a voice from within, as the door cracked open and a floppy-haired head peeked out. 'I mean, I do live in here.'

Soldiers tended to be a jittery lot, when it came right down to it. They had to be; in a world where fighting for one's life was routine, danger could literally be around every corner. Being unprepared or unable to take that killing shot had removed more of Ren's friends from her personal equation than she cared to remember.

And so, when the odd, bow-tie wearing man with the decidedly British tinge to his Japanese stepped out from behind the thin wooden door of... whatever the box was, he found himself at the business ends of the favored weapons of each and every Team 01 soldier. As usual, Ren's were the most impressive.

'Ooh my, you are a well armed lot, aren't you?' The man nattered, apparently unperturbed. 'Well, you can put them down, since I won't be staying.'

'Identify yourself!' Jae barked, the barrel of his rifle trained right over the man's heart. He smiled brightly as he eyed the coldly glinting metal.

'Hello,' He said, with a tiny wave. 'I'm the Doctor.'

'Doctor?' Saki said flatly. The younger woman was pure Japanese, all the way through; she'd never spoken anything else, and so the English word sounded stilted and awkward in her mouth. 'Doctor who?'

'Well, that doesn't matter, really,' The man himself said, rolling his eyes. 'Like I said, I'm not staying. I'm kind of searching for a friend that I seem to have... misplaced, and certain highly scientific processes led me after one of the folk who helped to misplace my friend. I seem to have gotten to her a tad early, but I wish to assure her, she will regret the choices she's going to make.'

'The fuck?' Ren pointed to herself, frowning at the Doctor's sharp glare. 'You talkin' about me, Limey?'

'Oh, you figured that out! Good for you!' He clapped condescendingly. 'And you're wearing biomechanical body armor, judging from the slightly squishy quality of the substrates, I'd assume... spontaneously generated metal compounds from some form of in-body symbiote? Bear in mind, I'm no expert.'

'Listen, fucker-' Ren wound up, raising her guns.

'Oh, don't waste your bullets, I was just leaving,' The Doctor sidled back behind his door, closing it slowly, glaring out at Ren. 'Catch. You. Later.'

As the door closed, Ren growled, 'No, you won't.' She didn't fully understand what had happened there, but she wasn't about to let some asshole in a bowtie threaten her like that.

The group remained grimly silent as the blue box shifted out, groaning like a coin caught in a vacuum cleaner as it did so. A single person was one thing, but there would be little point in firing on something that so clearly didn't want to be anywhere near the spot it currently occupied.

Besides, they had no idea whether their guns would do anything to that damn thing at all. The mission would have to be reported back a failure.

'Well, that was strange,' Jae heaved a sigh as the ship faded from view completely. 'I'm going to enjoy writing up the paperwork on this one...'

'Look on the bright side,' Itazu shrugged. 'We can go straight home, and nobody tried to blow us up like last time, now did they?'

Ren leaned silently against the nearest tree, turning up the opacity on her helmet's visor so she could be alone. Well, she was never really alone with Shichi floating in her blood, but this was as close as she got, these days. She frowned as her interior Heads-Up Display lights clicked on, flooding the interior of her helmet with warm orange light, matching the color of her hardsuit. She started thinking.

What the hell had that been? Time travelers weren't completely unheard of on Uo, but it was true that they usually avoided this time period of it like the plague. That was ominous in and of itself, but it wasn't like regular non-temporal travelers came here much anyway; not since the Terran government had issued those travel advisories warning against the civil war.

And as a completely different matter, never before had a time traveler spoken directly to her like that. Especially not with some weird fuckin' prophetic wisdom about regretting future choices. What did that even mean-

Her mind fell silent and still, her eyes flicking up to her visor, wide and slightly panicked.

Her HUD had entered emergency mode.

'Hel-lo!' An unfamiliar voice drawled in her ear, as a tiny viewing window opened up in the corner of her visor, displaying a grinning blond man, waving manically at whatever camera he was broadcasting from. 'We're going to have a little talk! To that end, I've disabled your incoming and outgoing audio and visual feeds. I want you to concentrate on me, okay?'

'Who the hell are you?!' Ren growled, not recognizing the man from the science division. 'What's going-'

'On? Oh, I'm going on! Walker Ichihara's the name,' The stranger babbled. 'See, you might not know it, but there's a little room on the outskirts of Shikishima that's staffed twenty-four seven with some top notch brains. And some controls for various elements of your suit. Cool, huh? I thought so: when I heard about it, I delayed all my plans just to come find it. You're so interesting, Ren Alexei Syfte...' Those last words came out sharp and dark, a little jab to cement just how much he knew; Ren never gave out her full name.

It was then that she realized that her suit was dead; literally dead, inert and frozen on the spot. This had never happened before, and it made a watery thin wave of panic sweep up Ren's spine. In a very real sense, the suit was her; losing control of it would be like losing control of her skin.

'What are you doing?' She growled, trying to keep the rising dread out of her voice.

'Well, I found a rather interesting array of big, threatening looking buttons, just sitting here behind a locked and guarded door,' Walker turned to a bank of controls. 'All of them connected to the server that controls all the restraint functions on that wonderful little suit of yours. All the limiters on your weapons, all of the internal intelligence's cognitive locks, and, oh yes, even your autopilot.'

That feeling of deep, abiding dread only increased. Of course she had always known that Shichi required a certain degree of offsite processing to keep him under control, but she had always separated that knowledge from her conscious mind; thinking about someone else having access to those parts of her would be highly unsettling to have to deal with, day to day. There was nothing she could do to change things, at least, not until the technology used in Shichi's control and upkeep advanced, and she had been assured that was being worked on.

And now someone else was sitting in her control room, poking at all the buttons.

'Now, where was that specific button I wanted... Ah, yes, there she is...'

Suddenly, her suit whirred back to life; a hundred thousand tiny organic motors and artificial muscles starting up. Her visor flooded with light, swirling test patterns and marching rows of figures quickly giving way to a view of the outside world, bordered by a peculiar red pattern that, if Ren tried her hardest, she could recognize. She had only seen it once, when they were testing the system, but she knew-

'Autopilot mode engaged,' Shichi chirruped in her ear, through her helmet microphone. 'All personnel, stand clear!'

'What are you doing?' Fear rippled through Ren's voice unopposed, as parts of her she had always relied upon betrayed her. The suit began moving on its own, straightening up and turning, laboriously, toward her squad. 'What's going on?!'

'One more little adjustment...' Walker whistled to himself as the tapping of keys filled her helmet's speakers. 'There we go!'

One by one, her squadmates, trusted allies and the closest thing she had to friends, became painted in the red light that, in her personal world, meant a hostile target. When the light hit Jae she gasped, the sound choked off by the constriction of her throat, as her heat pounded in her chest and, slowly, her hands began to move.

'Hostile targets sighted! Preparing ordinance!'

'Wait, no! No, no! Shichi, stop it!' Ren yelled. 'Stop it, I'm right here! Listen to me!'

'That's right, panic for me,' Walker grinned, leaning back in his chair. 'I came all the way out here to see you dance, spent quite a while setting the stage just right... The least you could do is sing nicely for me too.'

'Stop it, for God's sake, stop it!' She growled at him as her wrist mounted guns slid silently from their armored caches. 'Why are you doing this?'

'Fun.'

She knew, then, what she was dealing with. She knew the name, of course; most people knew who Walker Ichihara was. It was hard to forget the name after seeing pictures of his handiwork, but now was the first moment she understood the kind of person she was talking to.

And she knew he wouldn't stop.

'Guys...' Her voice came very close to a sob as Shichi targeted Itazu with both guns simultaneously. They were all just standing there talking, if she couldn't warn them... 'Jae... Run!'

She didn't even know if they could hear her. It was entirely possible that her outbound communications array was still disabled. She could be alone in her head, for all she knew. But she had to do something. Besides, they definitely knew what was happening as the crack of gunfire ripped through the air, and Itazu fell.

'No, no, no! Stop it! Fucking stop it!' Ren pulled uselessly at the controls, as her suit glided gracefully forward, taking Saki by the throat in one hand and squeezing, flesh and bone giving way under the cold, mechanical strength. Her entire body swung around, 'Jae, get the fuck out of here... It's not me, run! Fucking RUN!'

They had started out by yelling at her, silent faces contorting in rage and shock as their voices failed to reach her. Ren was a thousand miles away, locked in a metal coffin, forced to watch as it slaughtered her friends. When they ran, her allies, her targets... she followed.

The image of Jae's back as he fled from her, eyes cast over his shoulder and filled with grim determination to get away, then fear as she closed in, would haunt her nightmares for years. There had been whole years where she had tried resolutely to forget his face, and the shock that ran through her arm as she slashed at his legs with the knife he had given her, his name etched on the blade, burning through his flesh, sending him stumbling to the ground. His blood spattering her visor as Shichi swung the knife up.

Sometimes, when she was alone, she could still hear the scream that ripped out from her own throat as she did that.

*****************

'Walker, are you there?' Her voice was dull and dead, as she sat among the trees, bent and buckled with the force of her attacks. She hadn't taken the return of control of her suit well.

'Yes! I'm right here!' Walker's voice buzzed through her. 'Oh, that was wonderful!'

'Walker, shut up,' Ren said. 'I want you to know something, Walker.'

'Yes?'

'I'm coming for you, Walker Ichihara. You're mine.'

'I sincerely hope that you do, my beautiful, beautiful...'

That smile, eating away at her across the distance. Soulless. Empty. Her prey. All that mattered...

'Monster.'

******************

Present Day

Location: Trismestigius

'I've been waiting for this day, Walker,' Ren snarled, teeth audibly grinding together. 'I'd almost given up hope of ever finding you again.'

'You look well, Ren,' Walker said calmly, idly thumbing a knife that he seemed to have pulled out of nowhere. 'Of course, you were pretty upset the last time I saw you, so what do I know?'

'Jericho, let me out of this thing,' Ren's eyes remained fixed on Walker, as if to look away, even for a second, would cause him to disappear. She wasn't letting him go, not again.

'Jericho's not working,' Sander said flatly, staring straight ahead. 'We've been played.'

'Besides which, I'm not here for you, Ren,' Walker said. 'I'm here for him. Sander, she's still got that lovely little knife on her. Take it.'

'What for?'

'Well, I'm certainly not going to kill you unarmed, am I?' He waved the tip of his own knife through the air. He'd always felt very comfortable with blades, no matter how outmoded they were as a weapon. 'Take the knife.'

The problem was that there was no other way out of it. Sander wondered exactly how long Walker had been watching them, waiting and planning, building his scenario. How long had it taken him to circulate rumors that Sander Hackett was still alive, just enough to tempt Vesperia's finest out into one last hunt? How long had he been watching in silence, scheming and building up to this? Now, he was trapped, and he'd walked right into the damn thing because he'd been too angry to think straight.

If he took the knife, Walker would try to fight him, and he would win, no doubt. Sander had only won last time because he'd had the benefit of surprise and a sturdy cloaking device. In a stand up fight, the man with the most experience won and Sander, for all the self defense classes his father had made him take as a teenager, didn't really have the mettle to take down a man who killed for fun.

But walking away was no option either, given Walker's control over the base's defense systems. He could simply freeze Sander in place and kill him at his leisure. Not a comforting thought, but there it was...

Really, all he had left was Dulcimer's one sentence promise of assistance. Did he trust the Dullahan enough to gamble his life on that? Not like he had much choice.

He stepped forward, avoiding Ren's eyes as his fingers reached for her shoulder sheathe. She struggled as much as she could, pulling away as far as the zero-point beam that encircled her would allow.

'Sander, don't you dare! Don't you fucking dare!' She roared. 'He's mine! I have to be the one to kill him!'

'I'm sorry, but we don't exactly have a lot of options here,' He answered softly, the rage burning in her eyes telling him all he needed to know; there was nothing he could say that would make this better for her. Silently, he pulled the knife from the sheathe and held it as delicately as possible. It had weight to it, it was a weapon made specially for someone who would actually know how to use it. He'd never noticed the writing engraved on the blade before, even though Ren had a habit of toying with the thing when she got bored.

He didn't know what made her so insanely angry at Walker, but he could tell, it was a hate than ran deep into her bones. Sander didn't want to be around immediately after this was all over, even assuming he was the one who would survive this. And that was quite a leap to make.

'Sander, don't do this, it has to be me!' Ren's eyes flickered, almost close to pleading, which was surprising in itself. 'I have to be the one to do it. Please!'

He turned his back on her. It hurt to do so- both for who he was turning away from, and who he was turning to face- but it was the only option he had. Even if he found some way to get out of this, it wouldn't just be him. With Kana out of the picture there would be no way to get Jericho back to himself in any kind of timely manner, and there was simply no way of knowing how many of Walker's soldiers were still out there. And it wasn't like Walker himself would simply leave his crew be if Sander decided to jump ship now. He had to do this.

'Just so you know,' He said, sighing and raising Ren's troublingly large knife. 'If we fight, I'm gonna lose.'

'I know,' Walker nodded. 'But I'm not asking you to win, I'm asking you to fight. I know you're angry about what I've done to the programmer, about what I've done to her sister over there... And how all of this is affecting your little girlfriend. My former conquest. Show me that rage, Sander Hackett. Let me feel it.'

As the two approached each other, Sander began to realize just how little room to maneuver there was up here. When he had built Elsa's headstone here, he hadn't considered this place from a convenience standpoint; in his mind, nobody but he himself would ever come here. Even seeing Walker and Ren up here was a violation, as though they were intruding on something deep within him. He wanted to finish it just because of that, though he knew where it was probably going to go.

'Come on, come on,' Walker hissed, under his breath. 'Hit me!'

Sander swung with the knife, but it was a half-hearted thing; he'd never fought with a knife before, and he was honestly of the opinion that Walker's invitation was just a petty trick to get him within arm's reach.

'No,' Walker admonished, as Sander's swing terminated and his arm returned to the compact fighting stance he had been trained to use. 'Use a little passion. I carved up your friend like a damn roast! Try to kill me!'

Sander's teeth ground together as he swung again, putting some genuine force behind it. Walker laughed, stepping easily to one side and grabbing Sander's arm, pulling him in. Pain blossomed just under his ribs.

'Oh damn,' Walker sighed, stepping away from Sander's next misaimed attempt at cutting Walker. 'I seem to have gotten too enthusiastic again. My apologies, Sander. I know you wanted this to go on a little longer.'

'Okay, yes. Getting stabbed, probably should have prepared myself a little more for that,' Sander groaned through gritted teeth. It seemed like a shallow cut, but it hurt like hell and bled in rather unsettling amounts. What hurt more was the shape of the future he could see in that cut; there were more coming.

'Sander, I'm a little disappointed!' Walker rolled his eyes. 'I came all this way, planned this out so well, and this is the best you can do? I'd hoped for so much more.'

'Yeah, all that's still really... Oh, I don't feel like small talk with a maniac anymore. Fuck it,' Sander sighed, blood seeping through the fingers he kept clasped to his chest. It was very hard to think straight with an open wound and the prospect of more in the immediate future.

Still, as Walker stepped in with a flourish and a chuckle, clearly enjoying this far too much, Sander made another less than enthusiastic slice with his knife, hoping against hope that whatever it was that Dulcimer was planning wasn't, in fact, merely a stress induced hallucination and would happen soon.

'I love you, Sander,' Walker said softly, laying in with the blade of his own weapon. Sander exhaled sharply as the point dug into his shoulder, frighteningly deep. This time, the pain was positively paralyzing. He snarled with bestial fury, his target within arm's reach for the first time; it was an unfortunate opportunity he wasn't going to waste.

'We are not friends!' Sander growled, throwing his balled fist up into Walker's jaw with enough force to send the man spinning away, knife sliding out of Sander's shoulder as he did so. The blade of his own knife caught the madman on the arm as they separated, biting into the flesh and drawing blood.

Okay, that cut to the shoulder was a bad one, that's gonna bleed. Getting woozy...

'Sander, I've figured it out,' Dulsie's voice clanged through his head. 'Let's do it.'

'Whoa!' Sander straightened up suddenly, blood dripping between his fingers. 'That's an interesting sensation!'