Darkness (Doctor Who)

***Darkness*** is the eleventh and penultimate episode of the second series of *Doctor Who* produced by *The 56Studios*. It features the return of many of the Doctor's allies. It also features the return of the Darkness as its main villain. The story of *Darkness* is concluded in *Light*.

## Story

Across the universe, in the infinite void of space, where few stars twinkled and no galaxies burned, the Darkness waited. It waited, longed, and planned.

They knew that the Doctor was searching for a way to destroy them. He was not being discrete about his intentions, instead loudly going around the universe, telling all of its existence. It was a laughable quest, but one that provided some… annoyance. The Darkness regretted not having killed the Time Lord when it had the chance, but that time had passed.

…Or had it?

The Doctor could still be killed, and the Darkness would at last stop interfering with its existence. Then it would free. Free at last.

Gathering itself, the Darkness turned towards Earth. The Doctor was always spending time on that little world, and if they were threatened, he would come flocking back to it. It would draw the Doctor out, and he would be positioned for it to strike, and finally kill the Time Lord. Revenge would be theirs.

The Darkness began traveling across space, a massive of pitch blackness among the stars and streaking towards the Earth.

Kate and Osgood were among the soldiers as they walked through the tunnels underneath the Tower of London. Olivia led the way, her pistol at her side. They were marching towards the Black Archive, and Kate had no idea as to how she was going to get them out of this. All of them had guns, and they had just killed countless U.N.I.T. soldiers and officers.

Osgood was sobbing, and she was struggling to keep pace with them, prompting the soldiers to push her to keep her moving. Kate took her hand to keep her by her side.

“Hey,” she whispered. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this. I know it’s hard, but we will.”

She was still crying. She had just lost her sister, and it was understandable that she was upset. Kate looked around, and knew that she had no options. Olivia glanced back at her and smiled.

“If you’re thinking about finding a way out,” she taunted, “I’ll let you know that there isn’t one. We will have access to the Black Archive.”

“The Black Archive exists to keep what’s in it from people like you,” Kate sneered. “I’ll be damned if I let you through.”

“Well,” they finally reached the large red door to the Black Archive. Olivia stopped and turned to her. “If you don’t open this door, you’ll both die, and I’m sure you don’t want that. You’ve already lost your boyfriend and this little girl’s sister.”

“I won’t open that door,” Kate stood firm.

“Really?” Olivia raised an eyebrow. She then pointed her gun at Osgood, and the soldiers did the same. “Fine.”

Kate, seeing that Osgood would die because of her, sighed. She whispered to her as she stepped away. “I’m sorry.”

Walking up to pad, she placed her hand on it. As it scanned her hand print and bio-data, she turned to look at Olivia, who was standing and looking at her smugly.

“You’re a terrible person, you know that, right?”

“Oh, I’m well aware. But being a people pleaser doesn’t get the job done.”

“There’s a big difference between being generous and being a monster, you realize that?” Kate said as the door unlocked and slid open. They all looked at it as it disappeared into the wall.

“Maybe,” Olivia shrugged. “But I’m not the one who harbors monsters.”

Stepping past Kate, she walked into the Black Archive. The soldiers, weapons at the ready, pushed Kate and Osgood to follow through the doorway. The Black Archive was just as they remembered it, but Olivia was looking around in awe. She looked as a child in a candy shop. She examined a few objects before turning to her crew.

“Grab everything of use. The rest can remain. No need to be greedy.”

As the soldiers peeled off and began rummaging through the inventory, Olivia walked towards the main area of the chamber. The remaining two soldiers forced the women to follow. In the main area, Olivia was examining the board of companions of the Doctor with interest. Crossing her arms, she stared at them.

“It’s interesting,” she said, “how fascinated the Doctor is with this world. You’d think he’d have bigger fish to fry.”

“There’s not really an explanation,” Kate shrugged. “I’m just glad he cares.”

“The Doctor brings death and destruction with him wherever he goes,” Olivia turned towards her. “I doubt ‘care’ is the right word.”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to wipe out the aliens? Truly?”

“We’ve come closer and closer to extinction level events in the last decade. More so than before the first of our kind crawled out of the mud. Alien incursion after alien incursion. At the center of it all? The Doctor. He’s become more active on Earth in recent years, and the level of alien activity has increased also.”

“You can’t be serious?” Kate was flummoxed.

“I’m dead serious,” Olivia replied.

“You’re insane.”

“There’s a reason they call him the Oncoming Storm, the Destroyer of Worlds, the Bringer of Darkness, the Time Lord Victorious. You may believe that the Doctor is good, and hell, maybe he does too, but he only causes death.”

“The Doctor has saved this world countless times. If it weren’t for him, we’d have gone extinct a dozen times over!” Kate said.

“You’re just as brainwashed as the rest of them,” Olivia pulled up her sleeve and began fiddling with a leather-bound device, which they quickly realized to be a vortex manipulator.

“How *did* you get that?” Osgood asked, wiping her nose.

“Jacob Benson has been a mole for me for a long time, God rest his soul,” Olivia paced around the room. “He nicked after Clara Oswald returned it following the Zygon incursion a few years back before it was logged back in this place. It’s been pretty useful.”

“We know,” Kate said darkly.

“I haven’t been able to work out the time travel mechanism, though,” Olivia pulled her sleeve back over it. “It’s not an issue, but it would be nice.”

Kate was about to say something when one of her soldiers walked over to them. He had a small silver device in hand. Stepping up to her, he held it out. Looking at it, she took it, and twirled it in hand. It was the laser screwdriver that had belonged to the incarnation of the Master that had been known as Harold Saxon. A smile crept across her face as she examined it.

“Now this is nice,” she chuckled. “This will come of use.”

She then turned back to the soldier. “Have we collected a sufficient number of artifacts?”

“It’s hard to tell, ma’am,” he replied. “There is an untold number of treasures here.”

“Well,” Olivia stroked her chin, “it will have to do. Best not to overstay our welcome.”

The soldier nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

“Alright!” Olivia said loudly. “Time to move out!”

There was a shuffling as the heavily armored soldiers began packing up. Olivia pocketed the laser screwdriver and began walking towards the doorway. The two guarding Kate and Osgood forced them to follow. As they walked, Kate spotted the space-time telegraph coming up. She could see the remote trigger sitting on top of it. Taking a deep breath, she quickly swiped it as they passed by and held it at her side.

Stepping back into the corridor, Kate began pressing the switch, sending a message through space and time…

Across space and time, the Doctor, Clara, and April were walking among the ruins of the forgotten planet. They were returning to the TARDIS from the shuttle they had taken from the Cyber-Ship. The exploded shards of the ship hung in the sky, slowly entering and burning in the atmosphere.

The Doctor held the Light Shard in his hands, studying it closely. The women watched it also, their eyes looking from it to the Doctor and back again. It was similar to the other two shards they had recovered, yet completely unique. It was beautiful – more beautiful than anything they had ever seen. It was warm, like a small sun in the palm of their hand.

“What are we going to do now?” Clara asked as the TARDIS came into view.

He looked up from the shard. “Destroy the Darkness, of course.”

“Do you know if they can actually do it? Destroy the Darkness?” April brushed her hair out of her face.

“I hope so, because otherwise this whole mission has been for nothing.”

Reaching the blue box, the Doctor pulled out the TARDIS key and unlocked the door. Stepping inside, he crossed to the console. Setting the shard down, he began pulling levers and twisting knobs. The TARDIS shuddered as it began to fade into the vortex, the familiar groaning filling their ears. The two women gathered around the console, watching as the Doctor picked up the shard again.

“We can do it,” he said after a few moments. “We can destroy the Darkness.”

“Are you sure?” April asked.

“I can feel it.”

“Now we just need to find the Darkne-,” Clara was saying when an alert rang out from the console.

Pulling around one of the screens, they saw frequency spectrogram flickering across the screen. It buzzed and hummed for a moment before a word typed onto the screen. It was one, single word, but it carried the force of a hurricane.

“’Danger?’” Clara read.

“Who’s this from?” April asked.

“This is the space-time telegraph. That means that Kate is sending a distress signal,” the Doctor began moving around the console. The ship lurched as they changed direction in the vortex and hurtled towards the Earth.

“So something’s happened on Earth?” Clara held onto the console.

“That’s the idea!” he replied.

“One crisis to another, then?” April asked.

“That’s how it is sometimes,” the Doctor pulled down a lever.

They traveled faster through the swirling vortex of purple energy.

Outside the Tower of London, the TARDIS materialized. As soon as the wheezing stopped, the door opened and the Doctor, Clara, and April poured out. Stopping, they saw that the entrance to the tower was surrounded by U.N.I.T. vehicles, with their lights flashing. Orange tape and barriers blocked civilians from passing through.

“What happened?” April looked around.

“An attack,” the Doctor said before striding forward towards the entrance. The women looked at each other before following.

As they approached the gate, a handful of U.N.I.T. soldiers stepped towards them. They stopped at one of the barriers.

“Identify yourself,” the soldier barked.

“Are you trying to be funny?” the Doctor stared at him.

“The Tower of London is closed to civilians today. Please step away.”

He groaned. “For God’s sake I’m the Doctor.”

The soldiers’ eyes widened. “You are?”

“Of course I am! Who else would I be?”

They looked at each other, clearly unsure of what to do. Gathering, they mumbled amongst themselves. The Doctor, growing frustrated, stepped closer to them. His eyes flashed.

“There isn’t time to debate my identity! I received a transmission from Kate Stewart saying that there was danger. Now. What has happened?”

Stiffened by the Doctor’s outburst, the soldiers took a second to gather their wits. Finally, one of them answered.

“Chief Officer Stewart has been kidnapped, Doctor. So has Doctor Osgood.”

“Kidnapped?” the trio said in unison.

The soldier swallowed. “You’d best come speak to Colonel Walsh.”

Moving aside the barrier, the soldiers stepped out of the way so they could pass through. Looking around for a moment, the Doctor strode past them, followed by his companions. The soldier that had been speaking with them walked with them, accompanying them towards the structure. On the ground around them were a number of markers, indicating where bodies had been laying.

“How many dead?” the Doctor asked.

“Fifty-six,” he replied. “Inside and out. They weren’t ready for it.”

As they approached, they saw a woman standing among a group of men. She turned at their arrival, and her eyes lit up.

“Doctor?” she stepped towards him.

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“I’m Colonel Elizabeth Walsh of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce.”

“Pleasure,” he said indifferently.

She was bewildered at his appearance. “How did you know to come here?”

“Kate used the space-time telegraph to send me a message. What happened here?”

“We were attacked. Fifty-six dead, including Colonel James and one of the Osgoods. Chief Scientific Officer Stewart and the remaining Osgood were captured. The Black Archive was raided and a number of objects were stolen.”

“Oh my god,” April gasped.

“Who did this?” Clara crossed her arms, obviously shaken by the news.

“Olivia Angstrom,” Colonel Walsh said grimly.

“The woman behind the Zygon crisis?” April asked.

“The same,” she confirmed.

“What did she take, and where is she now?” the Doctor asked.

Walsh nodded. “Come with me.”

Turning, she entered the tower. The trio followed, joined by the U.N.I.T. officers that had been gathered there. They walked along the corridors of the base, where more markers sat on the floor, indicating where a U.N.I.T. soldier had died. It was haunting to see, but they moved on.

Eventually, they reached the main command center. As they entered, they saw four people standing there. They turned in surprise at their arrival, and Clara and April recognized two of them. The Doctor recognized the other two. Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Martha Jones, and Mickey Smith.

“Doctor?!” they exclaimed.

“What are you all doing here?” he said as they met n the middle of the room.

“Well, after the thing with the Kasaavin, I ran into my old friend Kate Stewart,” Jack explained. “She said that U.N.I.T. might have use of Torchwood, so Gwen and I kind of joined U.N.I.T.”

“Much better accommodations for our work here,” Gwen said.

The Doctor smiled before turning to Martha. “Martha Jones.”

“Doctor,” she smiled back. “You’ve changed.”

“Occupational hazard,” he said.

“I remember,” she chuckled.

“So what are you doing with this lot?”

“I still work for U.N.I.T., and I had worked with Torchwood, so they assigned me to Torchwood after Mickey and I came home from freelancing,” Martha replied.

“And I came with her because… you know,” Mickey smirked, looking at his wife.

“Ah, Mickey,” the Doctor extended his fist to him. “Good to see you.”

“You too, boss,” Mickey bumped it.

Clara and April stepped towards them.

“I’m Clara,” she said.

“And I’m April.”

“Good to meet you,” Martha nodded. “Both of you.”

“Likewise,” Clara smiled.

The Doctor clapped his hands together and paced around the control room. “Now that we’re all acquainted, we should get to work. But, since we’re in the reunion mood, there’s someone else that we should bring along.”

They all turned to look at him.

“And who’s that?” April asked.

“An old friend,” he smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “A very old friend.”

Sarah Jane Smith knelt down in her attic and began rummaging through an old box of mementos. They were relics of her travels with the Doctor. Relics of alien worlds, both good and bad. She smiled at the memories, remembering her time in the TARDIS. She missed it, more than anything in the universe.

She had had her own adventures since she had left the TARDIS all those years ago, of course, and even run into the Doctor from time to time, but it wasn’t the same. Her team – *the Bannerman Road Gang* – had all gone their separate ways. They all had their own lives now, yet she was still here, on her own. Alone.

Rani and Clyde had gone to America to work. Rani had gone to Washington D.C. to work in journalism. Clyde had gone to New York City to work in comic books. Luke had gotten married to Sanjay after he graduated and the two moved to Geneva for Luke to work with the United Nations. Sky was… somewhere. She wasn’t sure where, and she hoped every day that she would return.

Adventure was still out there for her, she knew. Something for her to fill the void with, but it wasn’t the same without someone to share it with.

As she pondered these things, an alarm suddenly rang out in the attic. Looking around, Sarah got to her feet and ran to the far wall of the room.

“Mr Smith, I need you!” she said.

The wall split open and the computer console and screen were revealed. Steam hissed from the controls in a dramatic fashion.

“What’s going on, Mr Smith?” Sarah Jane asked.

“It is a temporal disturbance outside 13 Bannerman Road,” the super computer replied.

“Temporal disturbance?” her heart skipped a beat. “What kind of disturbance?”

“An old friend has come to visit.”

Sarah then heard a familiar groaning coming from outside. Rushing to the window, she looked out and saw the TARDIS materializing in the street. She smiled in delight before running from the window and grabbing her jacket. Descending through the house and out the front door, she stopped and looked at the blue box. The door opened and a tall, gray-haired man stepped out. The two looked at each other from across the street. For several moments, they did nothing, but breaking into a smile, Sarah Jane ran towards the Doctor. A grin broke on the Doctor’s face and he ran towards her as well.

The two met in the middle of the street and embraced, with the Doctor picking her up and spinning her around. Setting her down, she looked up at the Doctor.

“Doctor! It’s so good to see you!”

“It’s good to see you too, Sarah Jane,” he replied.

“You’ve regenerated again,” she observed. “You really ought to be more careful with yourself.”

“Well, I try,” he shrugged.

“So why are you here?” she asked.

His expression then turned grim. “You’d best come inside.”

Turning, he returned to the blue box. She followed. Stepping inside, she took in the redecorated console room.

“Oh. You’ve redecorated,” she said. “I like it.”

As she stepped towards the console, she saw that there were a number of others in the TARDIS with them. She immediately recognized a few of them.

“Sarah Jane!” Martha said, hugging. “Good to see you!”

“Hey, missus Smith,” Mickey smiled.

“It’s good to see you,” Sarah Jane looked around. “All of you.”

She then looked to Jack, who saluted her. She rolled her eyes.

“Ma’am,” he said.

“Captain,” she nodded.

She then turned to Clara and April. They looked slightly nervous. She smiled faintly.

“So, I presume you’re the Doctor’s companions.”

“Yes,” Clara nodded, holding out her hand. “Clara Oswald.”

“April Leigh-Morgan,” April did the same.

Sarah Jane took both of them. “It’s so good to meet you. I’m glad that the Doctor isn’t bouncing around the universe on his own.”

“Same here,” Clara nodded.

“Alright!” the Doctor clapped his hands together again. “*Now* we can get started, with the gang all here.”

“What’s going on?” Sarah Jane asked as they gathered around the console.

“A madwoman has stolen a number of alien artifacts from U.N.I.T. and kidnapped Kate Stewart and Petronella Osgood. She’s responsible for dozens of deaths, and is trying to send the world into chaos by having humanity revolt against the ‘alien contagion.’”

“’Kate Stewart?’” Sarah repeated. “Any relation to the Brigadier?”

“She’s his daughter,” Clara said.

“Oh my god,” she gasped. “Then we have to find her.”

“My thoughts exactly,” he nodded.

“How do we even begin looking for her?” Mickey crossed his arms.

“She has the remote trigger for the space-time telegraph,” the Doctor began working at the controls. “If I can trace back the signal to the trigger, then I can locate her.”

“Can you trace back the signal?” Gwen asked.

“I’m working on that,” he replied.

“How long is it going to take, Doctor?” Martha questioned. “Every minute is a risk to Kate and Osgood’s lives.”

“And more time for Olivia to carry out her agenda,” Jack remarked.

“The device is hard to track,” the Doctor sounded irritated. “If she were to send another message, I could track it, but she was at the Tower of London when she sent the first message, so I can’t track it without a contemporary one. It’ll take some time.”

“How much time?” April raised.

“Some,” he said shortly.

The group looked at each other with concern.

They had been brought to a large warehouse with bags over their heads. The warehouse was full of crates and tables with weapons, armor, and other tools on them. Some of it was human, while the others were hybrids.

Kate pulled at the restraints binding her to her chair, but to no avail. They were strong, and would not be broken by human strength. She looked to Osgood, who was staring at the ground. She was still broken by her sister’s death. She then looked up to where Olivia was looking at all the objects they looted from the Black Archive laid out on a table. She was examining each of them closely.

“Oooh,” she picked up a Sontaran blaster. “This could come in handy.”

She then moved over and picked up a Cyberman head. “Not sure what we can do with this, but maybe it’s something.”

Next was an Ood communication ball, which she tossed aside. “Eh.”

Olivia continued looking through their haul, looking a the dozens of alien artifacts and weaponry that had been recovered through the years. Much of it was dangerous, and that’s what made Kate sick to her stomach.

“Kate?” Osgood whispered, breaking the silence between them. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, Osgood,” she shook her head. “We’re trapped here.”

“Will the Doctor save us?”

“I sent him a message using the space-time telegraph,” Kate replied. “But I don’t know if it worked.”

“Could you send him another one?” she suggested. “Maybe he can track it?”

“Maybe,” she managed to pull the device from her pocket. “Do you think it’ll work?”

“Only one way to find out,” Osgood shrugged.

Kate nodded and turned it hand. Pressing the button, she sent another message to the Doctor, hoping that he would be able to find them with it.

The Doctor was working at the controls of the TARDIS when it began beeping. Looking up, he pulled one of the monitors over. The others looked in confusion when the Doctor’s face lit up.

“Kate Lethbridge-Stewart!” he exclaimed. “You absolute genius!”

“What is it?” Clara asked.

“She did it! She sent another message!” he began working at the console again.

“Does that mean you can track her?” Martha’s voice dripped with excitement.

He nodded, pulling a few levers. “I can trace back the signal to its source, and can extrapolate the space-time coordinates embedded in the message. If it still works – which it should, by the way – then we should be able to follow it right to Kate, and also Olivia.”

“How long until you can trace the message?” Jack asked.

“Just… about… now!” he dramatic hit a button. A set of coordinates appeared on the screen. “That it,” he pointed to it. “That’s where they are.”

“What are we waiting for?” Gwen stepped forward.

“It could be dangerous,” the Doctor said.

“We know,” April smiled. “That’s what we’re counting on.”

The others nodded their agreement. He looked around at them before a smile broke across his face. Wrapping his hand around the main lever, he looked at them.

“Let’s go.”

Slamming it down, the panels above the console began to rotate. The engines groaned. Sarah Jane looked around with a broad smile on her face, delighted to be in the TARDIS again. Lights flickered outside the windows as they hurtled through the time vortex. They held on as the ship shuddered, shaking as they flew faster and faster through the swirling tunnel of energy.

Moments later, the last groaning of the engines died out and there was a loud *thud* as they landed. The Doctor began moving towards the doors when he noticed that Jack, Gwen, and Mickey were readying weapons. He stopped and turned towards them.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“There are people with guns out there,” Gwen said. “We’re making sure we shoot them first.”

“I will not condone murder.”

Jack cocked his rifle. “It’s not murder if we’re returning fire. Also these are stun weapons, so don’t worry.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” the Doctor replied. “They aren’t Daleks.”

“They’re just for self defense,” Martha said. “We wouldn’t kill anyone.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said, pushing past them and walking to the door. They glanced at each other before following him out.

They had landed in a hallway, which appeared to belong to a warehouse. It was an older construction, but appeared to have been repaired recently. The Doctor produced the sonic screwdriver and scanned up and down the corridor. Looking at the readings, he frowned.

“No life signs anywhere,” he said.

“How is that possible?” Gwen asked, holding her guns at the ready. “I thought you tracked the signal here?”

“I did,” he nodded, before beginning to walk down the corridor. “This is something else.”

“What else?” Gwen tilted her head in confusion, but the Doctor didn’t answer. Shrugging, they followed, the ones with weapons at the ready.

Continuing deeper into the warehouse, they still saw no signs of Kate and Osgood, or anyone, for that matter. It was abandoned. Had they arrived in the right place at the wrong time? Or had they landed in the wrong place at the right time? They were tense, but the Doctor continued forward, sonic screwdriver in hand.

Eventually, they reached a door near the end of the corridor. It was locked. Stepping back, the Doctor used his device to unlock it. They stared at the door, hesitantly thinking about what might be waiting for them on the other side. Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door opened, and slipped through. Immediately, Jack, Gwen, and Mickey followed, guns at the ready.

The main area of the warehouse was empty. Crates and tables littered the area, but they were empty and bare. There were patches of oil on the concrete from where vehicles had been parked. Whoever had been here was now long gone. The Doctor scanned the room again.

“They’ve been gone three hours,” he said. “I don’t know how we missed them.”

“Did we travel ahead in time?” April asked. “That’s happened before.”

“I thought we had traveled along the same timeline as when we left,” the Doctor scratched his head. “Maybe the telegraph needs some repair…”

“There’s an office over here!” Sarah Jane declared, opening the door to a small room on the far side of the warehouse.

Running over to it, the Doctor pushed through the door and into the small office. His companions attempted to get in, but struggled as there was not enough space for them all to fit it. Inside, they shuffled in with the rest looking in from the doorway. The Doctor scanned the room and shook his head in frustration.

“Nothing left.”

“Where did they go?” Martha said exasperatedly.

“I don’t know, but Olivia is very clever. I’ll give her that.”

“How do we find her?” Clara asked.

Pressing his finger to his lips in thought, he suddenly moved towards the door and left the office, pushing past them. He began walking to the back door. They were beginning to follow him when he looked over his shoulder.

“Call it into U.N.I.T. There’s something I have to get from the TARDIS.”

They watched him disappear through the doorway before Martha grabbed a radio from her pocket. With one last look at the door, she held the button.

“Colonel Walsh,” she said. “This is Doctor Jones. Come in.”

“*This is Colonel Walsh. What is it, Doctor Jones?*” her voice was filled with static as it came over the radio.

“We have their base of operations, but not them or Chief Officer Stewart or Doctor Oswald.”

There was silence for a moment before she responded. “*Give me your location. I’ll be there soon.*”

Olivia stood at the wall of screens and stared at the live feeds of the warehouse. She could see the Doctor and his allies looking around the main area and finding nothing but their remnants. The Doctor then left the room and it looked like Martha was calling someone on her radio.

Behind her, Kate and Osgood were still strapped to chairs. Turning, Olivia crossed her arms and looked at them.

“How do you like the view?” she smiled again.

Kate glared at her. “How did you know that the Doctor was coming?”

She paused for a moment before holding up the trigger of the space-time telegraph. Kate and Osgood looked at it in shock, and Kate reached into the pocket of her jacket for it, but it was gone. She returned her gaze to Olivia.

“What-? How-?”

“I was a street thief,” Olivia pocketed the device. “I moved on, but I’ve still got it. I saw you take it. I hoped you would, actually, because otherwise this plan would have fallen apart.”

“Why would you want me to expose your location?”

“You’ll see.”

“What’s with the cameras?” Osgood abruptly asked.

“I’m glad you’re paying attention,” she smiled before turning back to the screens. “In the simplest of terms: it’s a trap.”

“For whom?” Kate tilted her head.

“The Doctor. His strays. U.N.I.T.,” she shrugged. “All of them are about to go *boom*.”

“You can’t do that!” Osgood exclaimed.

She rolled her eyes. “You know that I can and very much will. It may not be the way that the Doctor deserves to die, but it’s a far easier option that allows for my plans to go forward.”

“And what are your plans?” Kate asked.

“Without the Doctor to stop me, I am going to use this handy little device,” she picked up a device that had been sitting on a table. Kate recognized it as something that they had recovered from the Judoon, which was used to broadcast a frequency on every channel, no matter the encryption.

“With this device, I will address the world, telling them of the Doctor, you, and the alien threat we face. I will show them that their governments have been aiding in harboring aliens who want to wipe us out. I will show the betrayal that has been committed against them and they will no longer be blinded.”

“So what? You want a revolution?” Kate pulled at her chains.

“Precisely,” Olivia nodded. “I want the people to rise up against the regimes that bind them and bring them down.”

“What happens when you plunge the world into anarchy? You take over?”

She shook her head. “No. I simply want to free the world from your tyranny and guide humanity towards a new golden age. Earth for humanity, and no one else.”

“And what would happen to the aliens that come to Earth?”

Olivia smirked. “Extermination.”

“You can’t hope to get away with this,” Kate growled.

“Oh, but I already have,” she chuckled, turning back to screens. A convoy of vehicles was rolling into view, driving towards the warehouse.

Walking along the table, she then picked up what appeared to be a trigger. Taking it in hand, she returned to her spot and stared into the screens, a smile on her face. Kate and Osgood exchanged fearful glances. They struggled against their restraints, but to no avail.

“Boom,” Olivia said gleefully, her finger tracing the largest button on the trigger.

Colonel Walsh strode up to Martha, Jack, and Gwen. U.N.I.T. soldiers and other officers were spreading out around the room. The Doctor was scanning around the large room with the sonic screwdriver, with Clara, April, Sarah Jane, and Mickey accompanying him. Walsh watched the Time Lord for a moment before turning to the three.

“What’s the situation?”

“We were able to track a space-time telegram which Chief Officer Stewart sent to this warehouse, but when we arrived, there was no sign of them,” Martha explained.

“Does the Doctor have any ideas?” Walsh asked.

“Possibly the TARDIS was thrown off course, but he’s still working on it,” she looked over her shoulder at him.

“Well, we need to find something soon.”

“We need know, ma’am,” Martha nodded.

“Olivia knew we were coming,” Jack said. “She’s on the inside. She breached the Tower of London with ease. There has to be a bigger game here than all this indicates.”

“Bigger this than raiding our headquarters? Bigger than killing dozens of our officers? Bigger than kidnapping Kate and Osgood?”

“Yes,” Jack replied simply.

“Like what?”

“We know that she wants to wipe out alien kind. She wants to punish every organization that has ever accommodated aliens, good or bad,” he glanced at the Doctor. “She’s probably planning some kind of public spectacle. Raise a righteous mob against us.”

“You seem pretty sure of this, Captain,” Walsh folded her hands behind her back and inclined her chin.

“I’ve lived through enough revolutions to recognize when a racist is trying to gain power,” he answered. “It takes a lot less to start one.”

“Then we’ll find her and stop her,” Walsh nodded.

“We have to find her first,” Gwen crossed her arms.

They all turned to look at the Doctor, who was still scanning the room. “Hopefully we can find her soon,” Martha said.

The Doctor wasn’t detecting anything with the sonic screwdriver. He shook it in frustration, despite knowing that this would not help. His companions were watching him, seeing his frustration.

“Doctor?” Clara asked.

“What?” he fiddled with the sonic screwdriver.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s nothing here,” he said.

“What do you mean?” April inquired. “There has to be something.”

“There isn’t,” he shook his head, but continued to scan with the sonic screwdriver. “It shouldn’t be possible. There should be some kind of trace here.”

“Is it possible that there’s some kind of perception filter here?” Sarah Jane suggested. “Perception filters are pretty common, aren’t they?”

“They are, but the sonic would still be able to detect it,” the Doctor replied. “Good thought, though.”

They stopped and the Doctor looked at the sonic screwdriver. He slammed it against his open hand again, hoping that force would do something to enable it to detect whatever it was that they were looking for, but it didn’t seem to have an effect. Sighing, he pocketed the sonic and began pacing around with his hands in his pockets.

“So what’s next?” Mickey crossed his arms.

“We can wait and see if Kate sends another telegram, but by then it could be too late by then. Whatever Olivia’s planning; it’s going to happen imminently.”

“’Imminently?’” April repeated.

“Yes, imminently,” he said. “Do you think they went through all of that just to sit and wait a few weeks? No. Olivia is moving towards something – an endgame – and we need to find out what that is before she reaches it.”

Walsh, Martha, Jack, and Gwen then walked over to them. Walsh stepped up to the Doctor and put her hands on her hips. The Doctor turned to her and held his hands behind his back. A few feet away, Sarah Jane

“Anything, Doctor?” she asked.

“No, and that’s what worries me. There should be some trace of them, but they’ve covered their tracks. There’s nothing here. No clues to be found,” he said, turning away from her.

“Come on, Doctor. There has to be something?”

“Nope. I have no answers to give,” he shook his head. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Hey,” Sarah Jane was looking up at something on the wall. “Why is this camera on?”

Following her gaze, they saw that a silver camera was mounted to the wall. There was a small red light lit underneath the lens, indicating that it was on. Striding over to Sarah Jane, the Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the camera.

“It’s transmitting to a nearby relay which… hang on…” he continued scanning before pulling it back and reading it. “Got it!”

“What?” they all asked in unison.

“I’ve got her location!” he was visibly excited.

“So she’s watching us?” Clara asked.

“Yes. Yes she is!” he nodded, seemingly not appreciating the weight of such a statement.

“Doctor,” Clara stepped in front of him. “She’s *watching* us.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened as he realized what he had said. Looking around, he returned to the camera and aimed the sonic screwdriver at it. Activating it, the camera suddenly exploded in a spray of sparks and the light went out. He then spun around to look at their alarmed faces. Taking the screwdriver in hand, he began scanning around the warehouse.

“Doctor. What’s going on?” April asked.

He looked at the readings on the device. “There are dozens of explosives embedded beneath the cement! They’re wired to detonate remotely!”

“*What?*” they exclaimed.

“Everyone out!” he shouted around the warehouse. “Everyone out, *now*!”

Running forward, he joined his companions and the other U.N.I.T. soldiers as they rushed across the warehouse towards the doors. Their feet pounded against the pavement, under which rested the very bombs that they were fleeing from. They panted, the large doorway to the warehouse failing to appear closer as they approached.

Finally, they broke across the threshold and onto the concrete outside. They kept running, trying to get as far away from the structure as they could. Running past the U.N.I.T. vehicles, they were above to run for the fence gate that surrounded the warehouse when it suddenly exploded in a ball of fire. The flames shot high into the air and the shockwave that erupted from it hit them, knocking them to the ground with an incredible force.

Covering their heads, they braced as shrapnel and flaming wreckage fell down around them. The ball of fire hung burning in the sky above them for several moments before fading away, being replaced by thick, black smoke. The warehouse still burned, added to the plume of smoke.

When the debris stopped falling, they slowly pushed themselves off the ground. Brushing the ash and dirt from their clothes, they all stared at the burning shell of the warehouse. The Doctor and his companions stood together, staring into the flames.

“Olivia really wants us dead,” Jack exhaled.

“No kidding,” Martha said.

“She doesn’t want ‘us’ dead,” the Doctor replied. “She wants me dead. You lot are just collateral damage.”

“Why would she think this would kill you?” Clara asked. “You’d just regenerate, wouldn’t you?”

“If the explosion killed me fast enough, it’d prevent me from regenerating. Maybe she’s aware of that. Or not. Who knows what knowledge she possesses.”

“Whatever knowledge she possesses,” Colonel Walsh stepped up to them. “It’s dangerous, and she must be stopped.”

“And how do you propose that we do that?” he turned to her.

“You said that you were able to track Olivia’s location? I want it. We need to launch a full military strike.”

“She’ll be relocating now. We won’t get to her before she’s gone. She knows what we’ve found out, and she’ll be moving onto her next phase of her plot, now that she thinks that we’re dead.”

“I don’t think she thinks we’re dead,” April crossed her arms, looking at something in the direction of the fence.

There was another camera mounted to an electric pole. Its red light blinked, indicating that they were indeed being watched. Without a word, the Doctor strode forward and stared into the camera with his piercing glare. Reaching into his pocket, he produced the sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the camera. It died in an explosion of sparks.

Walsh stepped forward. They all turned to face her.

“It’s time regroup. We need to go back to the Tower.”

Olivia slammed her fist down on her desk. Around her, her soldiers were packing up and readying to move out. Shaking with anger, Olivia turned to Kate and Osgood. They were staring at the blank screens before her before turning their gaze to the short woman before them.

“How did they survive?” her voice trembled. “How did *he* survive?”

“You seriously thought a bunch of bombs would kill the Doctor?” Kate nearly let out a laugh. “You can’t possibly be *this* naive? You think you’re the first person to try and kill the Doctor? He always survives, and he always wins. If you’re stupid enough to think that you’re somehow different, then I suggest going back and doing some serious self-evaluation.”

She stepped up to Kate. “How do I kill him, then?”

“Even if I knew, why the hell would I tell you?” Kate replied. “You’re a terrorist.”

“I am not a terrorist!” Olivia kicked her chair. With surprising strength, she knocked the chair over and sent Kate crashing tot he ground. She cried out in pain as her head hit the floor and her vision spun around her.

“I am a visionary! I will free humanity from the chains that keep in it in the dark! They will see you as more than just shadows on the wall. They will see the light!”

“God, you’re naive,” Kate groaned. “Killing the Doctor won’t do that.”

Stepping back, Olivia ran a hand through her hair and she thought about what to do next. “Yes… yes… I don’t need to kill the Doctor. Instead, I’ll just go directly to the people, like I always planned. Who cares if the Doctor is alive? He’ll try and stop me, but it’ll be too late.”

Quickly, she left the area, leaving Kate and Osgood alone. Osgood looked down at Kate on the floor.

“What are we going to do?”

“The Doctor’s working on it. Doing anything ourselves is going to get us killed.”

“She seems pretty close to killing us herself,” Osgood replied.

“Just hang in there,” Kate said, not fully believing it herself.

“You cannot order a military strike!” the Doctor said, stepping towards her. “You don’t even know where to order a military strike to!”

“That’s why you’re here!” Walsh retorted. “You’re the one who’s supposed to find that out!”

“And I will, but I can’t do it with the knowledge that as soon as I do, you’re going to order a massive military strike!”

“How the hell else am I supposed to do this? These people are dangerous. They raided their place and killed over fifty of our officers!” she replied. “These people are dangerous terrorists and they must be taken out. There is no reasoning with these savages! There is no other way!”

“There’s always another way!” the Doctor returned. “That’s why I hate you military people! Your first instinct is always to grab the biggest gun and shoot the most enemies! You don’t care about people! You just care about *your* people!”

“That is exactly the job of a soldier!” she stepped up to him. “You fight for your side, not for the enemy! Everyone knows that!”

“Of course I *know* that! But that doesn’t mean it’s right! It’s not right!”

“This is war, Doctor! And in war, you kill your enemy before they kill you. Olivia has already killed far too many U.N.I.T. soldiers, and I’ll be damned if she’s always to kill anyone else. I’m going to inform the world governments of what is happening here, and they will back us in a strike.”

“Yes. Get the Americans involved. They sure know how to blow stuff up,” the Doctor groaned.

“President Garcia Morales is a valuable ally, and she knows the need for peace just as much as I do,” Walsh replied.

“You’re confusing peace with war,” April said.

“To gain peace, there must be war. This is a universal truth.”

“I’ve seen enough war to know that’s not true,” Martha stepped into the conversation.

“Do not talk back to me, Doctor Jones,” she snapped. “If you do it again, I will make sure that you are no longer a U.N.I.T. officer. Understood?”

“Hey-,” Mickey stepped forward.

“You too, mister Smith.”

“Ma’am. I agree with the Doctor that a military strike would in advisable-,” Jack tried to argue.

She was not having any of their protests, however. “This is what we’re doing and this is the call. I am in charge, and you will do as I say. Understand?”

The Doctor was about to say something when Josh Carter abruptly rushed into the room. He ran to the main console and began hitting keys.

“There’s something happening!” he said. Hitting a key, he stepped back as the screens went dark before being replaced with the image of Olivia Angstrom. She was in the middle of speaking when she appeared on their screens.

“…Our governments have for decades hidden the truth from us. We have seen the invasions of the Daleks and the Cybermen, the Zygons, the Sontarans, the Sycorax. They have destroyed our cities and killed our people. Our government and the Unified Intelligence Taskforce have called them a tragedy, but they are the ones who made the conditions right for such attacks. They have harbored countless aliens, even allying with them.”

“Cut the feed!” Walsh ordered Carter. He rushed to another terminal and began working.

“The most notable of these is the Doctor. He is an alien who brings danger to the Earth. He puts out the fires that he starts and acts as a hero, but he is the true enemy. The enemy of the world. The Doct-.”

The broadcast abruptly cut out. Carter looked around in confusion, obviously not being responsible for it. The lights then went out, followed by the computers. Emergency lights then came on as they looked around. Everything then began to tremble, as if an earthquake was ripping through the city.

“What’s going on?” Gwen asked.

“Some kind of earthquake?” April suggested.

“There aren’t earthquakes like this in London!” Sarah Jane replied.

The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver. It was glowing an unsettling red. “Outside!” he said.

Running out of the command center, the group ran down the corridor towards the front gate. Rushing out, they came to a stop looking at the sky, which was growing unnaturally dark. The Doctor’s eyes narrowed as he stared into the black.

“Doctor…” Clara was staring at it also. “Is that…?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

“What?” April looked from him to the sky. “What is it?”

“The Darkness.”

“What’s the Darkness?” Jack asked.

“The embodiment of darkness. An entity of shadow,” the Time Lord replied.

Suddenly, a booming voice filled the air. It rang in their ears, and fell on the city like night consuming the day.

“***Doctor,***” the Darkness said. “***I have arrived, and the end has come.***”

## Characters

* Twelfth Doctor
* Clara Oswald
* April Leigh-Morgan
* Kate Stewart
* Petronella Osgood
* Jack Harkness
* Gwen Cooper
* Martha Jones
* Mickey Smith
* Sarah Jane Smith
* Olivia Angstrom
* Elizabeth Walsh
* Josh Carter
* U.N.I.T.
* The Darkness

## Gallery

Promotional cover for the story.Textless version.
## Trivia

* *Darkness* and *Light* feature the return of many characters that were prevalent in the Russell T Davies era of *Doctor Who*.
* This episode features the largest cast of characters of any episode.