trans_9 | It's The Final Countdown

The Doctor opened his mouth to retort when he heard an impossible voice in his head, like that little tickle you got when you thought someone dear was right behind you.

"Hurry up!" he snapped, trying to have two conversations at once which normally shouldn't be this difficult, come to think of it. "Unless you'd like to gut the rest of my TARDIS in case you weren't quite finished!"

Hang on, River! He wasn't even sure how River could communicate with him -- she hadn't ever struck him as especially psychic -- and he could only hope that whatever she was doing, she could hear him and it was two-way. Not much time to send more than a few assurances toward her, feelings that really, she needed him to trust him and it was only a little while longer. We're almost done!

The Doctor worked next to the Master, gritting his teeth at the Master having the nerve to whistle as if it was just another day of plotting and instead trying to coddle the bits and pieces of his TARDIS a little bit better than his fellow Time Lord. No respect for the old girl, really!

"Come on, let's get it plugged in -- " The Doctor paused to try to listen for River again, turning to check the doors for any sign there was an Ohm within snapping distance.

Nope, no respect-- and it was clear in the way the Master snatched a cable from the Doctor's hand with disdain. Disdain. Now that was a much more apt word. Though at least he was conscientious enough to test the thing first, something the Doctor apparently hadn't considered. He slotted the cable neatly into the makeshift accelerator, but hesitated a moment before doing the same on his end. He looked up at the Doctor with a begrudging bit of something in his expression. Concern, maybe?

"You might want to hold on to something in case this doesn't work as well as you've planned," he said icily.

And then he connected the cables.

River Song was still struggling to keep up with the swarm of Ohms currently trying their damnedest to annihilate her very existence. Try as she might to hold them off, they were beginning to close in around her. The Doctor's reassurance only went so far.

She thought it was all over, really she did. Those nasty little insectoids had successfully surrounded her. She was just about to say her goodbye to the Doctor when a sudden surge of energy came from the TARDIS.

It was this painful, tingly, numbing sensation that knocked her flat on her face.

Turns out, the TARDIS surge wasn't so kind to the Ohm grunts. It wiped out everything in range.

By all rights, that surge should have killed her. The TARDIS, however, had always been kind to her. So somehow, she had been spared.

Her legs were still numb when she tried to raise up on her hands and knees, fumbling and trying to crawl over to the TARDIS. She wasn't deathly injured just yet, it's just that surge had caused some temporary numbness in her body. At least the pain wasn't so intense.

Open the door.... Came her mental reply.

Guess what? River Song's a bit harder to kill then either the Master or the Doctor could ever imagine.

"Why would I -- "

The TARDIS shook, sending the Doctor stumbling against the hat stand trying to catch his balance. Thankfully he didn't end up sprawled on his back like an oversized turtle. Shooting a glare at the Master -- did he have to have that look? -- he turned and tried to open the door. Instead of Ohm acid spit, he got River Song, looking worse for wear and positively frazzled and...

Where were the Ohm? He saw loads of dead ones but the numbers didn't quite add up, now that he thought about it, and they didn't have time to be dwelling on that little important detail, he realized, as he looked up as saw the survivors still massing for a final assault on the TARDIS. The Doctor reached down to grab River and struggled to pull her in after him into the TARDIS, accidentally bumping into that hat stand with a quick "sorry!". He exchanged looks with the Master before trying to fuss with River.

"Here, there you are. Easy." The Doctor sniffled, pulled off his slimy jacket, which was starting to disturbingly harden over as the goo from Stacy dried, and put it over River gently, the closest thing he could give to reassurance for now.

The Doctor whirled and grabbed what bits of cable he could, ready to dive out again into the Hanger and help the Master with the accelerator's connection to Stacy. He couldn't' quite believe he was actually working together with the Master on something, even general survival here.

Exciting, wasn't it!

Well, it worked, in the sense that none of them had been fried to a crisp. It'd have to do. The Master had the ghost of a satisfied smile on his face as he unplugged the accelerator from the TARDIS shields, which only widened as he caught sight of the Doctor's indignant glower.

"Had to make sure it worked," he pointed out, just as River Song crawled through the TARDIS doors. She was injured, of course, because there wasn't enough going wrong in this day otherwise-- and did the Doctor really just apologize to a hat stand?

The Hangar seemed strangely less infested than it should have been, but it wasn't quite empty enough for the Master's liking. He peered out of the TARDIS doors, cables in one hand and the other stealing into his pocket and curling around the laser.

"We'll need a conduit that can handle the TARDIS' energy load," he told the Doctor. "Don't suppose you happen to see one out there?" It was that or try to run the cable all the way to Engineering.

It was a lot like that time she'd jumped out of the Byzantium ship and the Doctor had pulled her inside. Except she didn't land ontop of him. She ended up sprawled on the floor of the TARDIS, breathing heavily, still clutching her gun, and her hair - oh, it was a frizzed and poofed up mess from that surge of TARDIS energy.

Neither of them seemed to realize that the surge had happened outside of the TARDIS and River wasn't about to mention it. The less they knew about her miraculous survival, the better.

"I'm alright. No sonics....." Is all she has a chance to mutter as the Doctor throws his slime-hardened coat around her. She flashes him a relieved smile and nods to show she's okay. So long as she's conscious, that's what counts. They might have need of her again.

Sorry Doctor, your jacket is going to be a bit bloody by the time this is over.

"I saw one out there, but it's all the way at the opposite end of the hanger." Just trying to be helpful, Master.

She moves to stand again, gripping the hat stand for aid, grimacing as the pain in her side triples with that movement. "I can give you some cover fire. I'm not dead yet."

The Doctor reached out a hand to steady River without thinking about it. His hand comes up with smudges of gloop and what he knows without having to look was blood.

He shot River a look. "We'll handle it."

Lucky for River, he seemed to have other things on his mind aside from sonicing her -- the Master proved to be the ultimate distraction and his sonic screwdriver was now angled away from her as he turned to face the Master, frowning. The Master and River! Headaches, the both of them! No wonder they don't seem to get on well, between the fact they're both incredibly stubborn and nevermind all the other...similarities he could see between them that he probably shouldn't bother mentioning. Frowning at the blood, then at River, the Doctor rubbed his hands together.

"I think I know the one she's talking about," the Doctor said. He eyed that rifle in River's hands. It, and River, didn't quite look like they had gotten all that shooting out of their systems just yet. "Two minutes! That's all we need, so two minutes, bit of running, and I think you should really sit, River. Chair's right over there."

He didn't give River a chance to argue with him, whirling toward the Master. The Doctor hefted his own bit of coils and the accelerator, trusting the Master to at the very least care enough about his own survival here to be fast with his own end of it.

"On three," the Doctor said, priming himself by the door and ready to rush out into the Hanger.

Oh, of course it was all the way at the other end of the hangar. Why not? The Master shot River a glare, as if it was her fault-- or perhaps just for speaking at all, it was hard to say-- and gripped the cables and screwdriver all too tightly in preparation of this entirely too stupid endeavor.

He really hoped the Doctor wouldn't point out that his knuckles were turning white. It was probably too much to ask in this universe that the Doctor wouldn't notice at all. Even with all the commotion around them.

"I don't think we have til three," he murmured, staring out at the gathering Ohm forces. His reluctance to leave the safety of the ship was rapidly losing out to his full-blown, irrational panic upon seeing that many hideous insectoids rushing the TARDIS. Running seemed like an exceptionally favorable idea at the moment. "If we're going, we need to go now."

And he was off, yanking the Doctor behind him via the cables.

River shot him back a look that told him exactly what she thought he could and could not handle. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not dead just yet." Clearly, she's not going to listen to a word he has to say otherwise. To be fair, River had already done more then her fair share of heroics already. She'd done the messy work of killing. She might be tired. She might be in pain, but she's not in her grave yet.

Shuffling towards the edge of the open door, she grips her rifle and waits for the two of them to take off. The Master is the first to run, not-so-surprisingly. Steadying herself with one hand, the other hand holds up her plasma rifle. Firing off shots, mostly to keep the Ohm out of their way. That's not to say she might not miss a few. She's not exactly at her best.

It was a mad, impossible dash across the hanger and despite how much he wished River wouldn't be so -- so disturbingly willing to shoot things, she's the reason they even make it across from one end to the other.

The cables and conduits dragged and rattled against the floor. The Doctor skidded to a stop behind the Master, boots sliding as he glanced over his shoulder. He could see River, just barely, at the end of the hanger, the door of the TARDIS pulsing pink as her rifle flashed and winked and strobed in the distance. The Ohm only meters away from chomping his head off crumpled into a heap. They had only moments to spare, the Doctor right behind the Master as he made some last minute repairs on the conduit behind the accelerator.

It was up to the Master to finish the job.

Stacy's conduit, of course, was as disturbingly organic as the rest of her. He wasn't sure why he expected it to be any different, the Master thought as he gritted his teeth, transferred the screwdriver back to his pocket, and reached around in the muck with his free hand. Eventually his fingers found what felt like a port.

"This had better work," he snapped at the Doctor, before jamming the cable home. It would be pathetic to die out here, a dessert for the Ohm, and for absolutely no reason.

That was the last thought he had before everything went searing white. The Master convulsed, gripping the cable tightly with both hands, for an agonizing few seconds before being thrown backward by the energy surge. He hit the hangar floor with a thud and simply lay there, staring up at the ceiling with an almost comically surprised expression, his limbs twitching.

River saw it all and her first instinct was to rush out of the TARDIS, but she ignored it. Telling herself that she was best placed here, killing off any Ohm that happened to get too close. If she rushed to their aid, they'd never make it back to the TARDIS.

Still, was truly horrible of her to feel a sense of relief and smugness? Revenge could be such a bitch. She almost felt like stroking the wall of the TARDIS to offer her silent congratulations.

You sly old girl, you.

It was probably dumb luck that saved the Doctor. If he'd been the one to make the connection, it would've --

That was about as far as he got as he went sprawling backward along with the rest of the Ohm. He hit the ground with a winded "oof!", scrambled to his feet as the emergency lights winked off and the regular lighting flooded back on thanks to the power surge between the TARDIS and Stacy's gooey connection. The Ohm were cast in harsh shadows as they twitched and struggled to revive, leaving them open targets for River to finish them off. The Doctor trusted her to do her job, as much as he didn't approve of it.

Scrambling toward the Master, he tried to shake him awake and when that didn't work, he struggled to loop one arm over his shoulder so he could get him back to the TARDIS. Or, well, anywhere that wasn't here. Good thing, anywhere else!

About halfway back to the TARDIS, the Master ceased to be limp, dead weight and moaned in a bleary sort of way. A long string of babble, half in Gallifreyan, the other half probably English.

Rassilon, but his head was killing him. He ineffectually pushed at whoever was dragging him along and noted, with displeasure, that his limbs were also not doing quite what he expected them to-- as if they'd gone to sleep.

He struggled to get to his feet anyway, vaguely aware that being dragged was not a good thing. Everything was noise, and blurry, over-bright haze and there was only one person he knew could come even close to helping him out of this.

"Doctor..."

River wasn't even sure that the Master was still alive, at least not until he started to flop and twitch a little. She couldn't say that she didn't feel a twinge of disappointment. The extent of the damage was currently unknown.

When they came close enough, she lowered her gun long enough to hurry out of the TARDIS and help drag / pull them both inside. Don't think she's getting soft on the Master though, she just doesn't want him to drag the Doctor down with him..

Once they're both safe inside, she flings the doors shut and leans heavily against the wall to catch her breath.

"All limbs and lives accounted for?"

It's The Final Countdown

Okay, so we'll skip the Ohm until we're ready, yeah? :3

hope this is ok

Perfect

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