Both the Doctor and Echo ran around the console with excitement almost visibly radiating from them. "I like that. Allons-y. I should say Allons-y more often. Allons-y. Watch out, Rose Tyler. Allons-y. And then, it would be really brilliant if I met someone called Alonso. Then I could say, 'Allons-y, Alonso.' Every time!" he rambled rapidly, making his lover laugh with great amusement. He then stopped as he noticed the look Rose was giving him. "You're staring at me."
"My mum's still on board." she informed. That was when Echo's laughter increased at the horror-struck expression that over took his features.
"If we end up on Mars, I'm going to kill you." Jackie said with nothing but promise.
Echo walked over to settle beside her for a moment. "Don't you worry that gorgeous head of yours, Jackie. Anyone or anything that threatens you will end up in the blender dimension." she vowed with a reassuring grin.
Once they had landed, they saw on the scanner their being surrounded by armed troops. "Oh well, there goes the advantage of surprise. Still, cuts to the chase." The Doctor then took Echo by the hand and walked towards the doors. "Stay here, look after Jackie." he told Rose briefly.
Rose's brows furrowed, her urge to stay with them and not be left behind became more apparent. "I'm not looking after my mum." she quickly argued.
"Well, you brought her." he shot back with a care-free gleam to his alluring eyes.
"I was kidnapped!" Jackie clarified without hesitation.
"Doctor, they've got guns." she said, still thinking about them being separated.
Echo then held her blaster and portal gun in plain view. "You don't have anything to worry about, Rosie. I got us covered." then put both devices away so the humans wouldn't immediately see her as a threat.
Stepping out to meet the armed soldiers, she remained unaffected by the so called "danger". Echo gave them a bored look and folded her arms. "Shoot if you want. It won't end well for you." she warned casually.
Just then did a blonde woman walking quickly into the room and went straight to them. "Oh! Superb. Happy day." When she began clapping for some odd reason, the soldiers joined in.
Echo gave them a sharp glare, already seeing reasons to hate the humans standing before them. "Er, thanks? Nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor and this is my Echo." the Time Lord introduced, taken completely aback by the strange greeting. "You've--... You've heard of us, then?"
The woman beamed confidently. "Well, of course we have. And I should say, if it wasn't for you two, none of us would be here. The Doctor, his celestial confidant and the Tardis." They all then erupted with applause once again.
Echo's glare darkened at the praise. "Keep clapping and see what happens." she threatened.
Her Doctor gave the blonde woman leader a cautiously curious stare. "And you are?" he asked, not liking the way they knew him but he didn't know them.
She waved the question away without care. "Oh, plenty of time for that. Though, according to the records, you're not one for traveling by yourselves. The Doctor, his Echo and their human companion. That's the pattern, yes? There's no point in hiding anything. Not from us. So, where is she?"
The increasingly hateful brunette then put her hand on her holstered blaster out of pure, fed up boredom. She never did do well with being ordered around in any capacity. Sensing her nearing explosion, her Time Lord quickly took control to avoid any possible fights and/or deaths. "Of course. She's just a bit shy." He then reached into the Tardis without looking in. "Here she is. Rose Tyler." When Jackie was the one to step out instead, he struggled to remain composed. "She's not the best I've ever had. Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of yakkety-yak. And just last week, she stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged fifty-seven years. But she'll do." he rambled, making Echo involuntarily smile with amusement.
Jackie gave him an outraged look, "I'm forty." she defended.
But the Doctor continued. "Deluded. Bless. I'll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She's very good at tea. Well, I say 'very good'. I mean not bad. Well, I say 'not bad'." Upon seeing Echo's look silently telling him to focus, he then came back on track. "Anyway, lead on. Allons-y. But not too fast. Her ankle's going." His love shook her head while containing her snickering as they all began walking.
"I'll show you where my ankle's going." Jackie grumbled with familiar annoyance. Her interest with the happenings in where they were ultimately over shadowed anything else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As they walked through a large warehouse, both time travelers' eyes analyzed everything they were able to see. "It was only a matter of time until you found us, and at last you've made it. I'd like to welcome you both. Welcome to Torchwood."
All around them were dozens of crates, jeeps, trucks, and even a flying saucer like vehicle. "That's a Jathar Sunglider." the Doctor said with suspicion cascading within him.
"Came down to Earth off the Shetland Islands ten years ago." the abhorrent woman replied with tainted pride.
Echo watched her carefully, "Did it crash?" already knowing the truth. Humans never change.
"No, we shot it down. It violated our airspace. Then we stripped it bare. The weapon that destroyed the Sycorax on Christmas Day? That was us." she informed with a smirk of misplaced superiority. Echo's hand twitched, wanting desperately to give this woman a maggot hole straight through her face. "The Torchwood Institute has a motto. If it's alien, it's ours. Anything that comes from the sky, we strip it of everything and use it for the good of the British Empire."
Jackie furrowed her brows in confusion. "For the good of the what?"
"The British Empire." she repeated confidently. The worst part being the fact that she saw herself as the pioneer of such changes. Just as Jackie was about to ask another question, a soldier handed the disgusting woman a very large gun. "Do you recognize this?"
The Doctor furrowed his brow and frowned. "That's a particle gun."
She then winked, enraging Echo exponentially more than anything she'd ever experienced. "Good, isn't it? Took us eight years to get it to work."
Echo folded her arms in an attempt at stopping her fists from thoughtlessly flying. "It's only the twenty-first century. You're not allowed to have weaponry like that." she pointed out with detestation relentlessly radiating from her.
"We must defend our boarders against the alien." she countered as though it should have been obvious, then handed the gun back to the soldier. "Thank you. Sebastian, isn't it?" she asked with the same fake smile.
"Yes, Ma'am." he replied formally.
She nodded. "Thank you, Sebastian." They all then continued walking. "I think it's very important to know everyone by name. Torchwood is a very modern organization. People skills. That's what it's all about these days. I'm a people person." she told them joyfully.
"Have you got anyone called Alonso?" the Time Lord asked absently as he continued to look around.
"No, I don't think so. Is that important?" she quickly asked, ready to hunt down an Alonso at a moment's notice.
He then shook his head. "Oh. No, I suppose not. What was your name?"
Her proud smirk then instantly returned. "Yvonne. Yvonne Hartman." she practically declared like some royal; genuinely thinking herself the most important woman on the planet.
Echo snorted, "How boring." she mused with distaste.
Having been distracted, the Doctor wandered over to inspect a large step-stool like device with a handle. "Ah, yes. Now, we're rather fond of these. The Magnaclamp. Found in a spaceship buried at the base of Mount Snowdon. Attach this to an object and it cancels the mass. I could use it to lift two tonnes of weight with a single hand. That's an imperial tonne, by the way. Torchwood refuses to go metric." she said as though it was the cleverest idea to have ever been had.
"I could do with that to carry the shopping." Jackie joked lightly.
So, of course, Yvonne just had to try and correct her. To which only increased Echo's angry impatience. "All these devices are for Torchwoods benefit. Not the general public's." she explained as if to a child.
Echo immediately snapped. Without an ounce of hesitation, she took a step forward. "You keep pissing me off with every imbecilic word you unfortunately spout. You seem to think you know everything. When in actuality, you know less than nothing. So, before you dare challenge me to any pathetic pissing contest you desire, first figure this out. Who do you think I am?"
With a foreboding feeling enveloping her, Yvonne decided to answer anyway. "They say you were born a goddess who possesses untold power; untold knowledge. But you're obviously just flesh and blood. Nothing special. You can't possibly do anything to us." she said arrogantly.
Rage. Hatred. Loathing. Homicidal urges just millimeters from the surface. Echo walked so close to her, just inches from her face, that her mere proximity was a deadly challenge all its own. "I wasn't born into the god business; I fucking earned it. Unlike you. I am far more than just 'flesh and blood'. I'm a scientist. I invent, transform, create, and destroy for a living; and when I don't like something about the multiverse, I change it. Your miniscule little operation here is no exception to that fact. You got it ass-backwards, little girl. You can't do shit to me. Even if you tried."
"Oh, really?" Yvonne then nodded at one of the soldiers. "Grab her."
Echo looked at him with a bored expression. "You definitely have a right to refuse her order, and I guarantee you're going to die if you touch me. And there's no afterlife. Everything just goes black. Don't do it." But he wouldn't listen, even though his trepidation was clear. The moment the man's hand made contact with her shoulder, he immediately collapsed to the floor dead. "Told you." she shrugged carelessly.
"What was that?" Yvonne demanded, only thinking of taking the technology for herself.
"Death." Echo answered casually.
"What kind?" one of the other soldiers demanded angrily, having been friends with his fallen comrade.
"Instant." came her emotionless answer.
"But there was no sound. He just died." Yvonne said, unable to comprehend how she was even able to have such a device.
She nodded, "Yeah, terrifying. It's a terrifying thing to watch happen. It's called a deterrent." she said as if they were stupid. Which, truth be told, they obviously were.
"You couldn't just knock him out?" the same soldier demanded, his rifle fixed on her.
Rolling her eyes, she then exhaled in exasperation. "How is knocking out a deterrant? Everyone wants to be knocked out. Nobody wants to be dead."
"You're fucking sick!" the soldier exclaimed with his own personal hatred.
Echo considered what he said for a moment, then nodded. "Yes. Yes, I am. But do you want to know the best part?" She then paused for a moment as though she was sharing a secret. "There's no medicine that can cure me."
Letting his emotions take control, the soldier then tried to shoot her in the abdomen. Yet what they did not know and what they should have guessed was the effect of shooting at one the smartest beings in existence. The bullet ricocheted off an invisible barrier, causing the same soldier to be shot dead by his own bullet. Echo then gave Yvonne an expecting expression. "Try me, bitch."
The Doctor then pulled her back a bit in hopes of avoiding any more deaths than was necessary. "What about the ghosts?" he questioned with his own dangerous hatred on full display.
"Ah, yes. The ghosts. They're, er, what you call a side effect." she answered vaguely, not liking that they still didn't have all the facts.
"Of what?" he demanded, his patience wearing thin. How dare she cause Echo bother? How dare they try to kill her? No matter what was to happen, he vowed that Torchwood wouldn't be spared in the midst of the unimaginable, oncoming storm.
Yvonne's infuriating grin then returned, wanting to regain as much control as she could. "All in good time, Doctor. There is an itinerary, trust me."
Just then did they see their Tardis be driven away on the back of a truck. Echo's rage was quickly becoming unmanageable, though she hid its intensity extraordinarily well. "Oi! Where are you taking that?" Jackie demanded with just as much bother, her main concern being her daughter's safety.
"If it's alien, it's ours." she answered joyfully, without care and unearned pride.
"You'll never be able to even get inside." Echo taunted antagonistically.
Yvonne rolled her eyes, obviously very uninformed on who she was actually dealing with. For what she's seen already was only the tip of the iceberg. "Hmm! We'll see."
When Rose peaked out subtly from within the Tardis, the Doctor gave her a reassuring and encouraging nod. With the hidden blonde's help, maybe they could stop whatever was happening before anything irreversible could take place. Hopefully.