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unsteadygalaxy · 3 years

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all is soft inside chapter 10

a miragehound multichapter fanfiction

Also posted on Ao3; my username is the same there!

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10. feet won’t fail you now

CW: blood, match violence

Elliott lands hard, the impact sending shockwaves through his feet and legs. His heart immediately starts to pound- three sets of footsteps echo around him and he dives into the nearest building. He scoops up a Prowler, inserts a nearby HCOG scope, and just as he’s finishing up, the door in front of him flies open.

He breathes, steadying his aim, and pulls the trigger five times, sending an entire clip directly into a Legend hopeful’s head. The poor man’s face turns white and he immediately drops to the ground. Mirage lets out a whoosh of breath, and finishes him off. He’s got two heavy ammo boxes and a level one backpack, which he quickly takes. Another set of footsteps quickly approaches, and Mirage reloads the Prowler.

The other door bangs open, and just as Mirage turns around, Revenant fires an Eva-8 right at him. Two rounds of double-fire pellets rip into Elliott’s chest and neck, and to his horror, he falls to the ground, bleeding and gasping. Shit! No! It can’t end like this!

“Hey, uh, need help,” he gags into his earpiece, blood pouring from his mouth. Revenant picks up a crate of shotgun ammo and leaves, reloading his Eva-8 as he goes.

“Damn, Witt, lose that winning energy so quick?” Octane teases over the comms, and Elliott can hear more gunfire in the background.

“Oh, you know,” he chokes, “it’s kind of hard to win when you immediately get downed by a goddamn murderbot!” His hands are slick with red and he’s fading fast, and he wants to throw up.

A giant smoke grenade comes careening through the door, and Elliott’s vision is immediately obscured. He presses his hands to his wounds, trying desperately to keep the pressure on so he doesn’t bleed out. “Williams, coming to my rescue? You shouldn’t have,” he says, and he coughs up a glob of blood that splatters across the floor.

“Shut up and let me focus, Witt!!” Anita’s voice is commanding and harsh over the earpiece, and it shuts Elliott right up.

Just as his vision starts to go fuzzy, he hears a percussive beat of bullets close by, and Revenant screams, his modulated voice garbled with rage. “Get back here, you coward!” Anita yells. “Damn you!” Elliott loses track of how much time passes, but just before he passes out, something sharp plunges directly into his heart. “Fuck!” he yells, and his body jolts painfully, sending his arms and legs flailing. Adrenaline and heat surge through his veins, painfully clotting and repairing his wounds. A rush wallops his head and Anita drags him to his feet.

“Come on, Witt, get off your ass and give us a hand, would you?” She’s panting hard as she sticks a syringe into her wrist. Elliott grabs the wall for support as a wave of nausea flows through him, threatening to overturn his stomach.

“Yeah, yeah, thanks, Williams,” he chokes out, spitting out the last of the blood. “How many are left?”

“Two, by my count. Revenant got away, and he’s still got a teammate somewhere. Looks like you took care of their third.” She nods over at him, seemingly satisfied with his work. Anita had consistently been the toughest to crack- Elliott had not yet made her laugh to this day- so he would take what he could get.

“Yep, wasn’t a problem,” he says flippantly, shrugging as picks up a nearby shield cell. “Poor guy went down faster than- faster than… uh, poor guy went down fast.” His cheeks burn at his failed attempt at some sort of joke, and Anita’s deadpan expression tells him she’s not amused, either.

She tosses him a Phoenix Kit, and he fumbles it a little before shoving his arm into it. “Not the time. Joke around later. He’ll be coming back for us any second now.” Her voice is short, and it stings Elliott’s ego a little.

The Kit depletes with a hissing noise, and Elliott is good to go. He reloads his Prowler with shaking fingers. “Hey, let me get Revenant,” Elliott says, readjusting his backpack against his shoulders. “Gotta pay the son-of-a-bitch back. You go help Octane with… whatever he’s doing.” “Sure you can handle yourself?” Anita sounds skeptical, and her eyebrows are raised as she reloads her weapons. “Me?” He forces an incredulous laugh. “Of course I can! Didn’t you see how well I kicked his ass the other day? This’ll be a walk in the park.” He hops up and down on the balls of his feet, still feeling a little faint from being brought back from the brink.

“All right.” Anita shrugs and gives her weapon one last check, and she’s out the door before he knows it. She probably just wants to see me get my ass handed to me, he thinks, but it’s not a big deal. He wants to prove her wrong.

Sure enough, the sound of robotic footsteps pounds ominously against the pavement outside. Elliott casts a decoy and stations it next to the door, hoping to buy him a few more seconds. Shnk! An arc star slams into the already fragile door and begins to whine. Elliott throws himself backwards, deeper into the building, and shields his face against the explosion. The door disintegrates into bits, and the sound is deafening in his ears. An orange silencer hits the ground with a sinister whoosh, and Elliott backs up more, leveling his Prowler as his decoy dissipates into the air.

Revenant charges through the open door and through his silencer, hefting his Eva-8 once more. Elliott fires the Prowler, and the bullets smatter against the simulacrum’s shoulders, barely missing his head. Elliott curses under his breath and dodges out of the way as a volley of pellets exits Revenant’s gun. The bullets connect with his shoulder and arm and Elliott cries out in pain. He casts a decoy and sends it running right at Revenant to give himself more time to reload. Revenant grunts in frustration and nearly pulls the trigger again just as Elliott takes aim.

A full magazine of ammo assaults Revenant’s head and chest, and he goes down immediately, his shields melting into nothingness. “Damn you, skinsuit!” Revenant screams, trying to crawl away. But it’s no use- Elliott finishes Revenant off, sending another magazine of ammo right into his metal head.

“Murderbot down!” he shouts over the comms, heaving a sigh of relief. “What’s happening out there?” He loots Revenant’s backpack and heals up while he waits for an answer.

“Two squads down!” Octane crows, sounding extremely proud of himself. “You’re really missing all the fun out here, amigo!”

“Hey, I took care of Revenant, didn’t I?” Elliott replies indignantly as he plunges another syringe into his wrist. “You all should be thanking me.” He’s being cocky and he knows it, but it’s so much easier than admitting he fucked up in the heat of the moment.

“Sounds like you’re two for two with him, Witt,” Anita calls, breathing hard from her and Octane’s fight. “Good work. Keep it up.”

Elliott raises an eyebrow, somewhat surprised by Bangalore’s open praise. “Wow, thanks, Anita! I’m touched, really. You do have a heart.” “Don’t make me regret it, kid.”

“All right, all right, fine.” He smiles and zips up his backpack, and then realizes that Bangalore really isn’t that much older than him. “Hey!”

------------------------

kzzzhhhCRACK!

Shit.

A Sentinel bullet just barely misses Elliott’s nose, and he dives back under the scaffolding. His heart is racing and his pulse is pounding; this match has barely given him and his team time to breathe. They’ve just finished a ridiculous fight in which four different squads had piled up on each other, and he’s absolutely covered in blood and gunpowder. The only perk of continually fighting so many people is that he and Octane and Bangalore are fully kitted with every item they could need. Bangalore is taking a Phoenix kit and Octane is still for once, just getting finished with charging his shields. The banners report that there is only one other squad besides them, and Elliott is grateful. He’s had about enough of being third partied.

Elliott reloads his Prowler with shaking fingers and checks his Triple Take. After making sure the digital sight is correctly slotted, he takes a deep breath and aims up towards Cage. Through the sights, he can see Wattson’s fences crackling around each of the entrances to the upper part of the tower. Caustic’s intimidating form glows red for a moment and then disappears behind the railings. Dammit, Elliott thinks. Wattson’s fences plus Caustic’s gas make for a deadly combination, and an annoying one at that. The only thing that made that duo worse was Bloodhound being on their team, and if that charged Sentinel shot was any indication, Elliott and his team had a miniscule chance of winning if they rushed the tower.

“Who’s up there, amigo?” Octane asks, clearly ready to go. He’s literally vibrating with anticipation, and he makes Elliott exhausted just by looking at him.

“Caustic, Natalie, and Bloodhound,” he sighs, and ducks back into cover. “They’re set up in there like it’s a goddamn fort. Gonna be impossible to charge up in there.” He wipes sweat from his forehead and leans back against one of the posts.

“Well, where’s the next Ring at?” Bangalore questions, pulling out her holomap. She pinches her fingers and zooms in on their location, squinting hard. “Damn,” she swears, and dread fills Elliott’s chest. “The top of Cage is just barely inside the next Ring.” She snaps the map shut angrily and stuffs it back into her pockets.

Octane swears under his breath. “Looks like today’s just not our day,” he says, itching at his cap. He stands and peeks up above their hiding spot, just barely poking out of cover. kzzzhhhCRACK! His body flies backwards, his helmet blinking out of existence, and he scrambles back down to them, sheepishly pulling out a shield battery.

Elliott groans, amused and frustrated. The chances of them feasibly winning this match are fading fast. There’s no way they’ll be able to get up there undetected, and the thought of fighting upwards made Elliott exhausted. He’s so tempted to just recklessly run in, but something stops him.

Bloodhound wouldn’t give up, and neither should you.

He sighs, knowing it’s true. Bloodhound would find any way they could to dominate the situation and reshape it to their will. He’s jealous for the millionth time, and has to remind himself that Bloodhound is human and fallible too, even if he still doesn’t really believe it.

“All right, we’ve got a couple options,” Mirage says, rubbing his chin. “Either we wait them out, or we can charge up there head on before the Ring closes. Personally, I’d vote for smoking them out, but I’m not the one with the missiles.” He inclines his head towards Bangalore.

Anita considers this, then shakes her head. “Neither of them are ideal options. Waiting them out would give us the upper hand, but we could also take them by surprise by charging them now. We’d have to take out all the traps though.” She breaks off, still thinking intensely. “But if we wait for them to charge, we’ll have to deal with Bloodhound’s Ultimate plus Caustic’s gas. The next Ring is small enough that that’ll make the battlefield hard to navigate. Plus, my smoke will be pretty much useless. Bloodhound’s Eye will make sure of that.”

Elliott has to agree with that. He’s been trying to avoid thinking about them all day, but of course they’re on the last enemy squad. The way they had run out of the bar the night before made him extremely concerned, and his stomach churns when he thinks of how stiff and cold they had become. Elliott doesn’t completely know what he did wrong, but he knows he must have brought up something painful for them to leave as abruptly as they had.

But the memory of holding their hands in his makes his cheeks burn a little. He remembers how their grief had rolled off of them in waves, and how he’d felt so utterly helpless. Still, he’d felt closer to them than ever before, even though they were separated across the bar. Their openness had intimidated him a little bit- they were so naturally talented at making him feel better, and reciprocating definitely wasn’t his forte. But most of all, he had been stunned to the core by what he had told them. He would never be able to look at Epicenter the same way again.

“Witt!” Anita barks, and the way she says it tells Elliott that it’s definitely not the first time she has called to him.

“Sorry, what?”

“Ring’s closing in 30,” she warns. “We’re charging up the tower. How many times do I have to tell you to get your head out of your ass?”

“At least a few times more,” he fires back, rolling his eyes. He’s frustrated, but mostly at himself for getting distracted. “Sorry. I’m good to go.”

Anita does not look convinced, but she just sighs and turns back to her map. “All right. I’ll call in my missiles. Ring should be small enough to cover the whole area. Silva, try to get behind them. Witt, you throw us some clones whenever you’ve got them. I’ll toss in some smoke to keep them blinded. We’ve all got at least one digital scope, so that should give us an edge once we get up top.”

“Sounds good, amiga,” Octane agrees. “They won’t know what hit them!” He’s fidgeting with his butterfly knife, and Elliott is one hundred percent positive that Ajay is going to have to deal with his sliced fingers sooner or later.

Elliott nods as he flips on the full-auto mode on his Prowler. His limbs are aching and he’s drenched in sweat, but he’s determined to see this through. Anita’s plan is pretty solid, and he’s got few qualms with it. Her expertise on the battlefield is something he’s always been grateful for. Careful planning and meticulous strategy were certainly her strengths, and she regularly put his on-the-fly ideas to shame.

She checks over her weapons and then pulls out her Ultimate grenade, just as a warning horn blares over the loudspeakers. “Let’s give them a show.”

The Ring moves swiftly, advancing across the plains of green grass with an ominous humming noise. Elliott only has a few seconds, but he peeks back through his sniper sights to see what’s happening in the tower. Bloodhound is still crouched next to the steel fences, and he’s sure they have an easy shot on him. But they don’t fire. They look away from their sights and shrug at him, as if to say, Show me what you are made of. A peculiar heat drops into his stomach.

He looks back through the sights for a split second, but his heart drops into his gut when he realizes they had forgotten something absolutely essential. “Anita, wait! Wattson’s py-”

But it’s too late- Bangalore cocks her arm back and lobs the canister forwards, a shower of red sparks whizzing through the air. Missiles crash into the ground, and Elliott groans out loud. “Shit,” he hisses, punching the ground next to him. As the missiles advance forward, brilliant sparks of blue arc out into the sky over a limited radius, zapping the rockets away like they’re nothing more than flies.

Bangalore groans, immediately popping to her feet. “Come on, we’ve got to go!” She takes off running towards Cage, just barely ahead of the rockets as they begin to detonate.

The ground starts to heave beneath his feet, and Elliott stumbles as he starts to run. Bangalore is much more accustomed to sprinting across the roiling earth, and she does so with ease and grace. Octane weaves in and out of the explosions at an inhuman pace, pulling out his jump pad as he goes. “Vamonos!” he cries gleefully, laughing as he soars into the air.

Elliott can barely keep up, and he can feel the heat at his back as he goes. He nearly trips and falls, but recovers at the last possible second. His entire body is killing him, and he can feel sweat running down his spine as he runs. God, this whole thing is starting to feel hopeless again. He can see it now- they’ll run up to Cage and Caustic will drop gas canisters everywhere, leaving them a minefield of fumes. Wattson will fence up all the entrances and neutralize their grenades, and Bloodhound will weave across the battlefield, taking Elliott’s team out without a second thought. He figures that Bangalore and Octane can easily hold their own for at least a while, but there is no plausible victory for him today.

He’s never felt this hopeless, this reluctant to try and win a match, and it scares him a little. Elliott tries shoving the thoughts away- he doesn’t have time for his self-deprecating tendencies. But the doubt creeps into his veins and stubbornly sinks in its claws, making it really hard to think without immediately assuming the worst. He feels antsy, anxious to just get this over with and go back to his apartment above the bar to sulk for the rest of the day.

Show me what you are made of.

He swears he hears Bloodhound’s voice in his head, and the thought suddenly bolsters his confidence tenfold. Mirage throws a decoy out through the smoke ahead of him, hoping that Bloodhound takes notice of it and not him. Shifting the Prowler in his hands, he winces as the rockets nearest to him detonate, throwing him off balance again. They’re almost to Cage, and he starts to sprint towards the stairs on his left. G7 and Triple Take shots ring out towards him, narrowly missing his running form. He makes it to the steel tunnel and scrambles inside, holding his breath as the last few rockets explode. He hears the horrible screech of shredding metal, and takes bizarre comfort in knowing that the enemy team is that much more exposed up in the tower as the doors explode. A high pitched noise plays over the speakers, and he knows that the final Ring will soon begin to close.

I’ll show you.

“Where’s everyone at?” he hisses through the comms, his pulse roaring in his ears. He’s going to win this game if it kills him, dammit.

“Ground floor,” Anita answers, and he hears her breathing hard. “Got hit by a couple bullets, but I’m healing up.”

“Second floor,” Octane says, not sounding tired in the slightest. “The rockets busted through a couple fences, so we’ve got an opening, but we gotta go fast.”

“Got it,” Elliott says, his mind whirring. “Williams, got any ideas?”

“Always,” she replies steadily. “Send out some decoys and try to join us down here. The zipline on the south side is still in the Ring, so we’ve got our point of entry. If we try to make it around to the other one, we’ll be toast. Only Silva has any chance of running in and out of the Ring and making it out alive.”

“Hell yeah, chica!” Octane laughs, ridiculously upbeat and much too excited for this. “I’ll be faster que un conejo!”

Elliott’s minimal Spanish comes in clutch, and he rolls his eyes. “Sure, buddy. Just don’t get yourself killed up there. There’s a hunter waiting for you.” He checks over his weapons, and after considering it for a moment, he takes the digital threat sniper optics off of his Triple Take. He’s not going to need it now- they’ll be fighting in too close of quarters for him to be effective with it. Best shotgun in the Games, he thinks, laughing at his own joke.

“All right, coming for you guys in three, two, one!” Elliott sprints out of the tunnels, sending all of his decoys spiraling in different directions. As expected, bullets begin to pepper the ground around him as he runs towards an entrance. The Ring is blocking off the two low slats at the bottom of Cage, so he makes his way to the west side door. kzzzhhhCRACK! A Sentinel bullet collides with the top of his head, and he screams in pain, launching himself into the double doors. They give way, and he stumbles inside, slinging off his backpack as he goes.

“S-shit,” he stutters, rooting through his bag for a Phoenix Kit. He locates one and stuffs his arm into it, his whole body shaking. Anita is there in an instant, tossing down a cover of smoke just in case any of the enemy team had decided to drop down to try and finish Elliott off. No such footsteps are heard, and Elliott breathes a sigh of relief.

Time is quickly running out, and the three of them really need to move. “Okay, we’ve gotta get up there fast. This is gonna suck, but I’d rather go down fighting,” he pants as the Kit finishes healing him.

“Already on it!” Octane is somewhere above them, and Elliott hears the whirring noise of a zipline. He looks to Anita, who runs up the ramp and disappears out of sight. Elliott clambers to his feet and follows, willing his hands to stop shaking.

“I’m gonna take out the doors!” Octane announces, and Elliott hears a frag grenade skip across the metal above him. There’s a huge boom, and the doors shred into bits, the noise of it wrenching through his ears. Gas hisses and spews just as Elliott clambers to the open third floor, and Octane begins to cough. “Dammit!”

The smaller man drops down to them via the zipline and immediately pops a shield cell. “I busted the traps, but Señor Apestoso just sent down more.”

“It’s fine,” Anita replies shortly. “Is the pylon still up?”

“Yeah, but it’s out of the Ring, so the circle barely reaches them.”

“Can you shoot it down?”

“No, it’s in a really weird spot. Kind of hiding up there. You gotta be in the middle of the room to shoot it down, and that’s a no go.”

Anita swears, but Elliott smiles, a fantastic idea popping into his head. “Not a problem. Let’s get back up there and send in some distractions,” he says. He hopes to God that things work in their favor, and he readies his Prowler before jumping to the zipline.

His jump pack carries him up, and as he lands he dives to the right, dangerously close to the wall of the Ring. Both doors have indeed been demolished, and so has Wattson’s fence. One post still sits next to the opening, barely blocked by two of Caustic’s gas traps. Elliott shoots the traps down, but a third one comes flying down to take its place. He’s too close to it, and it goes off, releasing fumes everywhere. Gas clouds his vision and chokes his lungs, and he tries desperately to back up enough to be out of it, but the Ring is too close. Sticking a syringe into his wrist, he dips out of the Ring for just a moment. The orange energy field bites into his skin, and he groans in pain, every nerve on fire. Damn, Natalie, way to go, he thinks wildly. Even in the middle of a match, he can still admire his friends’ expertise and genius, and Wattson’s engineering of the Ring is no exception.

The gas cloud dissipates and Anita and Octavio zip up, landing beside him. She shoots in a canister of smoke, and Elliott acts immediately. A decoy sprints through the busted doors, stopping just short of the edge of the Ring. Octane dashes into the room after sticking a stim into his veins, a green blur of activity that Elliott can’t quite follow. He skirts the edge of the Ring and throws a frag up onto the top floor, but it’s zapped away by Wattson’s pylon. A tattoo of bullets beats down onto the metal, and Elliott cringes, willing Octane to get out of there as his decoy disappears in a shower of blue sparks.

“Octavio, come on!” he yells. But Octane is fast, of course- he weaves through the barrage of fire with ease and comes skidding to a stop just outside the doors.

“Told you, amigo!”

“Not the time!” Elliott says, his heart pounding. Anita shoots in another canister and Elliott puts his plan into motion.

Another decoy runs lazily across the floor with a snap of Elliott’s fingers, and pretends to check the pouches in its belt. The three enemies upstairs do not shoot, having caught on to Mirage’s tricks. Anita sneaks in behind it, examines the radius of Wattson’s pylon, and makes a calculated throw with an arc star. To Elliott’s delight, it slips up above them and connects with Caustic’s foot before spectacularly exploding in a wave of dizzying energy. Elliott feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he takes advantage of the distraction.

He aims his Prowler up and fires, and the pylon crumples to the ground in a series of deafening crackling noises. His decoy hadn’t been a decoy at all, and the adrenaline of his plan actually working floods into his chest like a rush of water. His celebration is short-lived though- the sting of bullets begins to slam across his shoulders, and he releases all of his decoys. The cloaking does its job, and he takes a brief moment to hurl a thermite grenade up above him before sprinting out the doors. Wattson’s fences putter out, roasted by the flames, and Elliott breathes a sigh of relief.

He cheers out loud as he heals up, his body shaking in delight and shock. It had actually worked! But the job was not over yet- even though he can hear the other team groaning in pain up above him, he knows they still have to finish them off.

“Let’s go!” Anita calls, and she ascends the zipline, closely followed by Octane. Elliott rounds the corner, reloading his Prowler. Just as he makes it to the zipline, Caustic throws down another trap, which Elliott narrowly avoids before shooting down.

The steady chak-chak-chak of a hopped up P2020 rings through the air, and a collection of bullets from Octane’s gun collides with Caustic’s face and chest. Octavio moves to reload, but Nox catches him with a deadly Mastiff shot straight to the head, shattering the smaller man’s shields. Elliott ascends the zipline and unleashes a full clip of ammo into Caustic’s arms and neck, finishing him off quickly, but Octane takes a bullet from Wattson across the way, and he falls to the floor, unconscious.

Anita fires a full clip of ammo into Wattson’s chest, and the engineer falls to the ground, wincing and gasping. She finishes her off, but the older woman breathes hard, clearly having taken a considerable amount of bullets from somewhere as Elliott was helping Octavio. Sure enough, the percussive barrage of an R-99 shatters the brief silence, and Anita falls to the ground, swearing.

Bloodhound emerges from the opposite corner of the room, and Elliott does not hesitate. The warning horn of the closing Ring roars out, and Elliott leaps down from the upper level, knowing there’s absolutely zero chance of reviving Anita. A few quick bullets follow him, but Bloodhound is smart enough to not completely track his erratic movement. Elliott sprints across the floor and out the doors, throwing himself off the tower and onto the grass below.

He hits the ground running, ankles and knees screaming in protest, and he thanks his lucky stars that Bloodhound can’t keep the high ground. He hears them roar in that deep, otherworldly fashion, and his stomach drops straight into his toes. The Triple Take slides into his hands as he turns, and he watches in awe as Bloodhound leaps off the tower far more gracefully than he had, surrounded by crackling red energy. He backs up, takes aim, and fires twice, but the spread of bullets is too wide and each bullet whizzes past their glowing form. He has to remind himself not to stare- it’s not the time to dwell on how powerful and majestic they look, nor is it time to listen to how heavy they’re breathing and worry if they’re okay. Elliott fires again, and the shot connects, but a torrent of bullets smashes into his chest. He swears, fumbling the Prowler back into his hands. In a panic, he sends a decoy running straight at them to give him more time, but Bloodhound shoots it down. They bob and weave, taking a second to reload.

Elliott takes his chance. He breathes deeply, centering himself, and aims the Prowler right at their head. Time seems to slow, just like it had with Revenant, and he applies the slightest bit of pressure to his trigger finger. The bullets fly out of the gun, and he doesn’t feel the recoil at all. Every bullet finds its mark on Bloodhound’s head, obliterating their golden helmet and sinking into their mask.

Bloodhound drops to the ground and convulses for a moment before going horribly, eerily still.

Shock washes through his stomach, and he drops the Prowler. A buzzing fills Elliott’s ears. He… he actually did it? He… beat Bloodhound?

He approaches Bloodhound’s unconscious form slowly, feeling like he’s in a dream, and stares at them. They look so peaceful, even though blood is leaking from their helmet down into the grass. He picks up their R-99, weighing it in his hands. A flash of memory and feeling comes to him from a few days before- Bloodhound picking up his gun and placing it over his sternum…

Mirage settles the R-99 across their chest gently. As he falls to his knees, a flash of pain crosses his chest. He knows he should feel triumphant- ecstatic, even- but the only thing he feels is sorrow.

Elliott picks up their arm, crosses it across their stomach, and murmurs, “forgive me” as victory music roars over the loudspeakers.

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megabadbunny · 5 years

Note

What do you think the alternative resolution to Journey's End would be if Jack or Rose had shot the Dalek before it could hurt the Doctor, and thus there was no Metacrisis? How would this affect the 2009 specials?

Given the setup dating all the way back to The Christmas Invasion, I think the metacrisis was inevitable; however, there may have been universes and realities where he came about later, rather than sooner. So let’s say Jack arrives just a handful of seconds earlier and blasts the fuck out of that Dalek--I would love to say that Rose would get to it first, but given how distracted she and the Doctor are with each in each other’s sights, I don’t know that she’d be able to react in time, in just about any reality--before it has a chance to go all murderbot on the Doctor. What then?

Well, with no regeneration energy zapped into the handy spare hand, we have a couple changes that go into effect once we reach the Crucible, namely being that 1) Donna wouldn’t feel compelled to stay behind on the TARDIS, so she would join the rest of the team in front of Davros; 2) without Donna inadvertently helping to create the metacrisis by touching the energy-filled hand, the TARDIS would continue its destination to the Crucible’s fire-dumpster and would at the very least suffer intense and crippling damage; and 3) with no metacrisis, there’s no one willing to destroy all the Daleks, presuming the Doctor prefers to keep his hands clean instead of wiping out all the murderbonerbots to save the rest of the universe.

It’s almost certain that the Doctor would be able to find a way to stop the Daleks without killing them, but precedent shows that everyone’s favorite squidmurderbonerbots are nothing if not resilient, so while the Doctor stops the detonation of the nefarious Reality Bomb and the implementation of Davros’ insidious plan, Team TARDIS’ success will be temporary at best. Probably the Daleks go into hiding or scurry off with their tails between their legs or are flung into some far corner of the universe, yay (for now)! However, weakened by its romp in the Crucible’s fire pit, whatever remains of the TARDIS likely can’t tow all the planets back to their respective locations and times, at least not yet. So we may have an extra adventure slotted in there, using Jack’s manipulator to hop here there and everywhere to fetch whatever is needed to repair the TARDIS so everyone can go home. That could be fun whacky fun. Once the TARDIS is back in working order, Team TARDIS hauls all the planets back where they belong, and everyone is happy enough, but the everything is tainted by the knowledge that the Daleks are still out there somewhere, the threat buzzing quietly beneath every adventure like so much background radiation.

But we don’t see any screamysquidmurderbonerbots again for a little bit, which is good, because we’ve already got enough on our plates as it is! First we’ve gotta drop off Jackie in her home universe--but Rose doesn’t stay this time, the Doctor isn’t nursing his guilt-hangover quite yet, but even though she doesn’t say anything, we all know Rose well enough to know that she’s at least a little bit conflicted, because the reality of opting to live a whole universe apart from your mom and your brother is way fucking tougher than simply thinking about it--not to mention we veer straight into the specials, which can only be enhanced by the additions of Rose and Donna (because of course, without the metacrisis (yet), there’s no reason to remove Donna’s memories, and no reason to send her home).

So the plot for the first two specials doesn’t actually change much, I don’t think; we’re mostly dealing with differences in character development, since we don’t have the theme of the Doctor trying to outrun his own misery, since he isn’t miserable since he isn’t alone. And this time around, the whole “pending doom/death of the Doctor” theme is different as well, since see above re: lack of misery; instead of it being an outrunning-the-clock sort of story, it becomes a mystery, just another problem to solve. Additionally, we get the chance to explore the sort of person Rose has become in her time away, the ways these changes bring her and the Doctor closer together, the ways they make things awkward or friction-filled or difficult. Not to mention Rose probably misses her family something fierce, though she tries not to trouble the Doctor about it. (She probably confides in Donna, though.)

But the thick plottens when we reach The Waters of Mars, because without the Time Lord Victorious, what happens here? If the Doctor isn’t stewing in his own loneliness, then we no longer have that emotional instability pushing him to act recklessly, and with his pending doom framed as a mystery instead of a haunting inevitability/punishment, we no longer have that added dash of nihilism thrown into the mix. We do, however, get some friction between opposing viewpoints, as Rose and the Doctor quickly determine that, no matter what, the fixed points in this timeline must be upheld, but Donna struggles to reconcile that notion with her strong sense of empathy and compassion. Ultimately everything goes the way that the timeline/fixed points dictate it must, but Donna’s feeling pretty beaten down, like she can handle a lot of shit but the sense of being totally powerless and unable to help people in such dire straits is a lot for her to swallow, whereas, on the other hand, the Doctor is concerned about Rose and how she so readily agreed to let these folks die for the sake of preserving the timeline. Like yeah, this is what has to be done, but he’s never seen Rose so practical or nearly calloused about such a thing, which bothers him. (Cue the continuation of the internalized guilt we see cropping up via that conversation with Davros in Journey’s End.)

And now we come to the End of Time, which, yep, we’ve got the pending return of the Master and the Time Lords, but now we’ve got the return of the Daleks as well. I can imagine the resurrected Master making a devil’s deal with Davros, working to help the universe’s most infamous screamysquidmurderbonerbotpepperpots even as he works behind the scenes to help resurrect/bring back the Time Lords, probably with the plan to set them against each other and see which one wins (although ideally, he thinks, they’ll just off each other and be done with it). Also it’s worth noting that Wilf is likely no longer involved in the story, since his motivation to get in touch with the Doctor is gone.

Like he do, the Doctor tries to reason with the Master, and maybe, just maybe he’s making some headway, but a Dalek-in-hiding shoots him where he stands, and that’s the end of that. Except you know where I’m going with this; convinced that this isn’t the end for him, and determined not to let this body go (like not only does he want to keep this self for Rose’s sake, but also because regeneration in the middle of a universewide crisis is hugely inconvenient), the Doctor siphons off the excess energy into his spare hand, which lies dormant--for now. This incarnation of the Doctor lives to fight another day, but not any longer than that; when all is said and done, the Time Lords defeated (sent back into the time loop again), the prophecy about the Doctor’s doom supposedly diverted, there’s still the issue of the Glass Case of Emotion(TM), and a companion being trapped in it. Only this time it isn’t Wilf; it’s Rose. And of course the Doctor saves her--of course he does!--but at the expense of forcing a regeneration he can’t back out of. Not this time.

So after the appropriate amount of angst and drama and general feels, Ten regenerates into Eleven, and pretty quickly, things proceed much as they do in the original Journey’s End--Donna activates the metacrisis, Donna and the metacrisis work together to stop the Daleks, metacrisis genocides the plungerscreamysquidmurderbonerbotpepperpots, etc. etc., with the added hijinks of a newly-incarnated Eleven flopping around all post-regeneration-sickness-weirdness-like. But at any rate, the day is saved, huzzah!

But along with his fresh new bodies, both of the new Doctors (Eleven and metacrisis alike) have some fresh new perspective to go along with: it’s painfully obvious that Rose feels guilty and responsible for the Doctor’s death/regeneration, and even more obvious that Rose misses her family, terribly. Oh-so-conveniently, there’s a small window of time where they could go between universes again, in the wake of everything opened up by the Time Lords. So the metacrisis proposes a solution, to Rose: they can all stay here, together, or he will join her and her family in the other universe. He figures it’s high time he gave up everything for her, for a change. If she wants.

Shocked at how much the metacrisis Doctor is willing to give up for her--stunned to learn that he feels every bit as deeply for her as she does for him--Rose hesitates, trying to gather her thoughts. She isn’t so concerned with whether the metacrisis is really the Doctor--probably she was there when it happened, so she saw everything, not to mention she misses Ten like a fish misses water--but she worries about Eleven being on his own. It’s all right, he assures her; he’s got Donna.

Rose asks him about the end to that question she asked on Bad Wolf Bay four years ago, on the worst day of her life; this time, however, the Doctor doesn’t demur out of guilt or fear, but instead, keeps quiet because he feels that the metacrisis--i.e. Ten reborn--is the Doctor that Rose really deserves to hear the words come from. And of course, just like in the original story, the metacrisis Doctor steps forward to answer the question before Rose is even finished asking. And of course, Rose kisses him.

So after a tearful goodbye, Rose and the metacrisis Doctor whisk off to the parallel universe, leaving Eleven and Donna behind to do their thang. Unfortunately, a different timeline doesn’t automatically equate to different rules, so Donna’s brain is degrading much the way it does in the original Journey’s End. However, this time, with Eleven’s bouncy-puppy mentality instead of Ten’s guilt-soaked self-punishing mentality, Eleven contrives a way to extract his memories from Donna without wiping all of her memories of their time together. Which, of course, is wonderful! And Eleven bounces about the place, chattering excitedly about everything he and Donna are going to do together, already planning their next adventure, because by gum, he’s ready!

But Donna isn’t.

It’s nothing to do with the new Doctor, even though the fact that he up and changed everything about himself is more than a little jarring. But after Pompeii, and after Mars, Donna’s had something of an epiphany. Because see, everything they’ve undergone together, everything they’ve won, everything they’ve lost, has just made her realize there’s stuff she can do back on Earth, back in her own time, to give help to those who desperately need it. She can make a real difference, back home. Eleven swallows back his disappointment in favor of his pride; Donna’s come so, so far, and he’s honored to have witnessed it. He makes to drop her off with her grandpa and mum; naturally, Wilf invites him in for dinner. But he doesn’t stay. He can’t stop. He’s the Doctor, after all.

*~*~*~

#breckstonevailskier #journey's end fixit #ficandchips #tenth doctor #rose tyler #donna noble #this may not have been the answer you were looking for if you were hoping for something where rose stays with the doctor forever #the time lord version of the doctor that is #but as cheesy and imperfect as the journey's end arc can be it's pretty well-grounded in internal logic and sensible storytelling #it's definitely rushed but it offers a viable happy ending for rose and the doctor #that being said do i think it could have been done better? oh absolutely #if they'd had more time for billie piper to be involved then i think it would have been much better to have more time with her and tentoo #although my alternative suggestion doesn't have the poetry of ten's ending that the real version has #hashtag pobody's nerfect i suppose #mbb fic

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