Catalysts Don't Show Mercy (Susan Foreman/The Doc)

[Ace]

“What was it that my grandfather called you? A social misfit? An emotional cripple? He called you evil, didn’t he? Well, why wouldn’t he? You did help Fenric win that darling little game, didn’t you?” She shook her head pushing back the feelings that Susan was trying to dredge up “I am...I was. That was a long time ago. He had his reasons and so do I.”

Ace stood there listening to the woman as she spoke. She wasn’t gonna lie to herself the words that she spoke did have a sting to them and brought up some fairly painful memories, memories she thought she had locked away deep in her mind. “Neat trick. Susan was it?” she glared at Susan, aiming one of the guns down close to Susan’s foot and firing off a shot as close to Susan’s foot without actually shooting her foot to prove a point of her not being a child “BACK OFF!” she was now aiming both of the guns at Susan’s head.

Looking over at Alec she shrugged “I may be a kid compared to all of you but I know when end to point and which end to squeeze better, and faster then most people” she watched as the Doctor tried to dislocate Alec’s arm. This, this had been why she left him she saw the slipper path he was on and she had, had wanted nothing to do with it, but for this like she said she owed him this much. "Doctor...don't" Before she could stop herself she started to go to the Doctor to stop him but stopped mid step keeping her guns aimed on Susan, she did trust the girl as far as she could throw her.

[Susan Foreman]

The woman turned her head slightly, watching her grandfather push Alec down. She lifted her chin, ignoring her first instincts to run to her friend and ask if he were all right. Her instincts to take Ace’s gun and shoot down the Doctor. The guns were just in her reach and Ace would hardly expect it, right? However, she remained still, her expression one of cold, indifferent boredom. Her lips were still curled into a menacing smile, only widening when her grandfather addressed her.

“Hello Susan, I hope you don’t actually think you will be able to mess with Ace, I have taught her every trick there is on manipulation and how to withstand it…”

“Oh? But every word I said was true. You don’t deny it,” she said it, quirking an eyebrow, daring him to respond. “I’m not trying to manipulate Ace. I’m just telling her the truth. I don’t want you to raise her hopes and then crush them, just as you did with me.”

“…now why don’t you pass me that cube and we can talk this out?” he asked. She scoffed, remaining in place. Did he honestly believe that she would be taking orders from him? “Susan, I thought you were raised better…”

“Raised? You abandoned me before my first regeneration. You left me without a way to contact you, without a way to travel, without a way to live. Don’t you tell me that you raised me better when you weren’t there for the most important moments of my life,” Arkytior said calmly. She placed her hands once more behind her back, peeling the burnt flesh bitterly. If it hadn’t been for him, her arm wouldn’t be raggedy. If it hadn’t been for him…

Oh, but it continued. “The way you talk about humans makes you sound like the Master, who if I recall was the one who murdered your husband, acting like the man who killed your husband a great way to honor his memory, don’t you think? Tell me how would David and Alex react to your behaviour? Hmm?” he demanded. Susan merely tilted her head calmly.

She raised a finger to her chin, tapping thoughtfully. “Perhaps if you’d been there a little bit more you wouldn’t have to ask me how they’d react. It’s all your fault. The Master killed my husband to get to you. The Daleks killed my son because he was fighting for you,” she snapped. Her eyes flashed, and the Manipulator sparked inside of her jacket pocket. “You deserve to die. How many people have died for you? Should I count them? Ace deserves to know.”

Focusing her attention back to Ace, she tilted her head. The menacing smile had never left her lips, and it only widened as Ace began to speak. Her eyes were pale and bloodthirsty, locked dangerously on Ace. She was still, her hands motionless at her side. “BACK OFF!” the human girl screamed, firing a shot at the ground near Susan’s feet. The Time Lady’s eyes never left Ace’s, unblinking.

“I may be a kid compared to all of you but I know when end to point and which end to squeeze better, and faster then most people,” she said. Susan continued staring silently. Ace seemed just as concerned about the position the Doctor had Alec in – her friend, he had called her his friend – and tried to back the Doctor off. Fat lot of good that would do. She remembered when Ian and Barbara followed her to the TARDIS and he decided to take them on a little trip despite her claims.

If only he’d listened to her. If only she hadn’t gone to that stupid school… what had she to learn from the humans? Those filthy savages?

Ace began to go towards the Doctor but stopped, apparently remembering the Time Lady was still motionless behind her. Slowly she moved her body, walking towards Ace with long, languid steps. The Manipulator sparked in her pocket again as her telepathy flared. She giggled, high-pitched and manic. Razor-sharp blue eyes met Ace’s brown ones.

“Here’s the thing,” she said, stifling her giggles for now. “If you shoot me, it will take me some time to die, even if you get me right here—“ she said, grabbing the barrel of Ace’s gun and putting it to her forehead. The bright eyes were aflame with dangerous, hysterical anger. “And in the terrible agony that is death, I will accidentally destroy this Manipulator,” she said, pulling it out of her pocket. It sparked again obediently. “But what happens if you don’t shoot me?”

She paused and pushed the gun away from herself harshly, taking a step closer to Ace. “It’ll be much less painful to die in a fiery explosion, I’ll tell you that much.”

Her point made, she backed away from Ace and smoothened out her skirt. The spine-chillingly brutal look on her face was gone now, and she was back to the blank-faced, bored Susan. She walked to the Doctor, ignoring Ace’s earlier warnings about shooting them. “Let my friend go, or I will kill yours,” she said blandly. She turned to Ace and smiled politely, pointing to her forehead. “Shoot me here, remember? The blood will leave stains all over my dear grandfather. It will paint him such a nice color paint him in red in red,” she shuddered and giggled once more.

She remembered her friend at the Doctor’s feet, and sat down beside him, smiling widely at him.

“Won’t they look so much better in red? In my red?”

[The Second Doctor]

Alec groaned in agony and his eyes grew wide as the Doctor dislocated his arm and brought him to his knees. This was how he worked indeed. I break something on you, you retaliate, I maim you infront of my old friend and granddaughter. He felt his air slipping away. But he only laughed, as Susan was. She was a genius right now.
"Oh, the pacifistic one. Doesn't carry a gun, doesn't need one. He knows how to break your mind and your body. It's a playground to him, the world. It disappoints me to see good people defend him." Alec said.

"Doctor means healer Ace. Where he goes, disaster follows. That doesn't sound like a healer to me."

It was a battle of wits right now.
"I agree Susan," he said, blinking heavily in pain, "Red to match his soul. But then again, all that crimson is overcome by the blackness of murder and malice."

The Dark Lord recounted his latest adventures. He'd been thrown through a Tardis and made a bloody and scarred mess of himself, shot repeatedly by thieves, had his arm cracked- the wrong way by an angel, had an entire side of him sliced up by monks on Demon's Run, and half-disintegrated by Daleks.

Alec really couldn't catch a break.

[The Seventh Doctor]

The Doctor looked up his eyes lacking something he was different than normal not angry, just cold it was somewhat disturbing.

"Ace" he hisses "Get in the TARDIS, NOW don't argue, just do it"
He stands up dislocating Alec's other Arm then kids him into the ground and walks over to Susan, he reaches into his pocket and brandishes a small pistol

"Threaten me all you like, BUT never Threaten Ace" he proceeds to trip Susan and then cocks the pistol and points it at Susan.

"I did what was best for you, I gave you a home, I gave you what i stupidly gave up years ago stable life, I understood there would be loses I KNEW what would Happen to Alex and David, I had hoped you would move past those losses and become stronger but no you fled you abandoned everything and became filled with hate you are not Susan, not mine give a reason not to pull the trigger..."

[The Second Doctor]

Alec grinned brutally, as the Doctor, in his hurry, hadn't quite bent his arm far enough. And then turned his back on him! Oh, he would enjoy this. Beat up on Alec, no one cares for his health, but laying one annoyingly perfect little finger on Susan was a privilege the Doctor no longer deserved.

He jumped up and pulled a gun of his own out of his jacket with his good arm. His dislocated arm had no effect on the fact that he was a perfect shot. Nine bullets practically waiting to be fired at the Doctor.
"You shoot that, and I blow you away." he said, equally as cold.

A disgusted taste set in Alec's mouth.
"You...your own granddaughter. No wonder you leave everyone so bitter. You cast then out. And you call yourself a hero." he said.

[Ace]

As much as she wanted to she didn’t argue with the Doctor, as much as she wanted to and started making her way to the TARDIS, holstering her guns when she was closer to the TARDIS and the Doctor.

Susan had rattled her deeply which she was sure that was what she wanted, which is why Ace was trying her damnedest not to let it show on her face, or the fact that the Doctor scared her slightly this was not the man she left if she knew, her living the TARDIS would have turned him into this she wouldn’t have left but she couldn’t change the past.

She stopped listening to the Doctor as he talked to Susan, she walked up and placed her hand on his shoulder “Doctor, your not a murderer just walk away please. Before you do something you regret.”

[The Seventh Doctor]

He turns swiftly and fires at Alec hitting the pistol out of his hand.
"Ace I've killed more people you well ever know, they may have been evil, they may have been good but I killed them none less. He looks at the pistol in his hand then closes his eyes and rests the pistol against his forehead. he opens his eyes and fires a warning beside Susan.
"That's your only warning"

[The Second Doctor]

Alec spun the pistol in his hand- the Doctor's bullet had missed miserably -and pointed it back again.
"Doctor, this is your warning. Leave her alone. You've butchered millions," he sighed, "And I speak for the innocent ones. Move that gun or I won't bother giving you a chance to regenerate." he threatened.

He obviously wasn't getting his point across.
"You care more about Ace of spades over their than you do your own family. You're hardly even a Timelord. You did kill most of them."

[Ace]

Ace shot Alec with her most menacing glare, she was so sick of the name jokes she had to stop herself from whiping out her own gun and putting a bullet in his skull but turned her attention back to the Doctor if she could just get him out of here there wouldn’t be any bloodshed. Softly with her hand still on his shoulder “Professor....please.”

[The First Doctor]

(OOC: I hope nobody minds me tacking my two cents in, given that the timelines are already twisted up here anyway. If you do, just let me know and I'll delete this post.)

There was a roaring, grinding sound from the other end of the alley, and litter spun and danced in the sudden wind as cubic meters of air were displaced. A blue box slowly materialized, fading in and out of visibility before finally settling down into reality. The door opened. A man stepped out.

He was large-nosed with close-cropped hair, dressed all in black. Black boots, black slacks, black shirt, black leather jacket. Behind him, the box continued to wheeze and groan, the light on the top flashing and spinning.

"Nah, he didn't kill most of 'em," he said in a Northern accent. "That was me."

[Susan Foreman]

She sat on the ground, legs crossed calmly. “Tell me, Doctor, is it a habit of yours to carry weaponry? Never used to be,” Susan said thoughtfully, grinning up at the gun. “Seems to me that the humans that you love so much have changed you. You were cruel and malicious before, but I never would have thought that you would pull a gun out on your own granddaughter,” she mused.

“I did what was best for you, I gave you a home, I gave you what I stupidly gave up years ago stable life, I understood there would be loses I KNEW what would happen to Alex and David, I had hoped you would move past those losses and become stronger but no you fled you abandoned everything and became filled with hate you are not Susan, not mine give a reason not to pull the trigger,” he said, seemingly all in one breath. She raised an eyebrow, a smile tugging on her lips. It seemed that she was getting underneath her grandfather’s skin more than he’d care to admit.

“No,” she said. “I’m not going to give you a reason not to shoot me. Go on then, grandfather. Right here,” she said, pointing to her temple.

Emotionless blue eyes moved slowly to Alec. “You shoot that, and I blow you away. You… your own granddaughter. No wonder you leave everyone so bitter. You cast them out. And you call yourself a hero,” the man said. She shook her head, trying desperately to understand why Alec was showing her pity when her grandfather was holding a gun to her head. She didn’t want pity, she craved understanding. She wanted her grandfather to lose everything, and she craved that flicker of understanding in his eyes when he acknowledged how terribly… alone she had been.

The Doctor shot the ground next to her. She continued staring up at Alec. When the shot echoed in her ears, she shifted her gaze to the Doctor. “That’s your only warning.”

“Warning? Just shoot me and get it over with.”

“Doctor this is your warning. Leave her alone.”

She stood up. Her knees and elbows were scraped and bloody from when the Doctor had tripped her. She sighed when she heard yet another TARDIS, and then rubbed her temples when it turned out to be another Doctor. Beautiful.

Hopefully the other Doctor would kill her soon enough.

And then? her mind hissed. You’re going to let him go? He won’t hesitate to hurt Alec.

“Oh, lovely. Please tell me all about this genocide. You seem to be very proud of it,” she said coldly. Susan glared down at her feet, clawing at the burns on her arm, irritated. She wanted to put on the Manipulator and grab Alec and just leave, but she couldn’t. Alec would get angry, wouldn’t he? Tell her that he’d finally had the Doctor. And what if the Manipulator burnt him as well? She sighed shakily, feeling the cold cutting through the jacket once more. She’d been able to ignore it with the first rush of anger, but now it was bitter and cold and she was just so exhausted.

She sat back down on the ground, pulling her legs underneath her. Her eyes roamed to the new Doctor, and she smiled at him innocently.

“Grandfather,” she said, sounding remarkably like she did when she was a child, “tell me a story.”

[The Second Doctor]

Alec sighed as another Doctor came forth.
"Y'know, when I set out to catch you, Doctor, I didn't expect buzz cut and the teenage general. Heck, I didn't even know frownface incarnation was the one I would get. Why couldn't I have caught scarves or rainbow? I'm pretty sure they don't carry weaponry." he said.

The Dark Lord snapped around and his gun now pointed at the first incarnation.
"I shoot you, early second incarnation. But if I don't give you a chance to regenerate, neither of you survive." he said, a calm smile plasterered on his face.

"I'm so sick of you."

[The First Doctor]

“Oh, lovely. Please tell me all about this genocide. You seem to be very proud of it,” she said coldly.

It took iron self-control not to respond, but that was the one thing he had in abundance. Or was that arrogance? Either way, he forced himself to take things in order.

The Doctor stopped by Ace, and smiled sadly at her. "I think I already told you this but, if I didn't, you really should get in the TARDIS." The smile became genuine for a moment. "You probably won't, though."

"Y'know, when I set out to catch you, Doctor, I didn't expect buzz cut and the teenage general," said the one person he didn't recognize. "Heck, I didn't even know frownface incarnation was the one I would get. Why couldn't I have caught scarves or rainbow? I'm pretty sure they don't carry weaponry."

"I don't know you, but you've obviously met me," was the Doctor's answer. "You're an agent of the council, maybe? But most of the time, I never carried a weapon. Made me think harder about a genuine solution."

Then, in a fury, he wheeled on the Doctor. "And you!" he shouted, twisting the gun from his fingers. "A gun? A gun! What sort of example are you setting?" He popped the clip out and stuck it in one pocket, worked the slide to eject the chambered bullet and stuck it in a second. He sighed. "This was a bad age, though, wasn't it. Centuries of planning, and all of it coming together just a little too late to matter." The gun was tossed into a nearby rubbish bin. "But let's have no more of this 'gun' business, shall we? They're too final a solution."

His hearts were thudding in his chest, knowing that any moment he'd have to turn, have to confront her.

She sat back down on the ground, pulling her legs underneath her. Her eyes roamed to the new Doctor, and she smiled at him innocently. “Grandfather,” she said, sounding remarkably like she did when she was a child, “tell me a story.”

With a sigh, he turned and sat before her, crossing his legs. "All right," he said sadly. "What story would you like to hear? One about an angry young man who made a terrible decision, and fled his home with all that remained of his life bundled in his arms? Or maybe you'd like to hear about the bitter old man, who realized that he was raising all that was left of his family to be just like him. Oooh!" he said, his voice filled with mock excitement, "That one even has a sequel: he tries to keep his granddaughter from becoming the same sort of vicious old nomad that he's become, so he decides not to let her back into their ship. Instead, the last time he sees her, he's the same manipulative old b*****d that he always is, and makes her decision for her."

His shoulder slumped. "But there's third part to that story as well. When I - he - finally got his ship under control, when the Time Lords finally gave him back his memories of how to steer that ship, he went back to the minute after he left his granddaughter. He was going to make things right, even if he was three regenerations older."

His voice turned bitter. "And you know what he found? That the Daleks, trying to prevent their own destruction, had changed time. That Earth had never been invaded in 2150, and that his granddaughter was lost." He looked away, unable to bear her gaze. "And he spent a century and a half looking. He even snuck back to Gallifrey, trying to find her."

The Dark Lord snapped around and his gun now pointed at the first incarnation. "I shoot you, early second incarnation. But if I don't give you a chance to regenerate, neither of you survive." he said, a calm smile plasterered on his face. "I'm so sick of you."

The Doctor didn't blink, didn't even look. "Then do it. I hear the screams of the dying, every time I make the mistake of trying to sleep. I can hear them. A trillion voices, Time Lord and Dalek alike, crying for mercy, begging for their lives."

He looked over his shoulder at the Dark Lord, eyes dark and full of pain. "A trillion ghosts. It would be a mercy."

[The Second Doctor]

Alec fired. Upon the Doctor. Not the Seventh, but the Ninth. He fired with a vengeance. Susan probably assumed he had some reason to kill the Doctor. Some horror story of how the big bad Timelord had done something to him. But no. He was here for Susan. After meating her at their little tribunal with Sarah, he had decided that he couldn't let someone with such amazing potential waste their life being bitter.

And so he fired at high-velocity nine bullets. Then he put in another clip. And he fired again. One more clip. If the Doctor moved, so did his aim. Twenty-seven bullets, all sailing towards the Doctor. And not a hint of shame in his fellow Timelord's eyes.
"There's your mercy." he said darkly.

[Ace]

"I think I already told you this but, if I didn't, you really should get in the TARDIS." She noticed he looked sad and it broke her heart "You probably won't, though." Then the smile seemed to change to something more genuine and she couldn’t help herself from smiling back and shaking her head “No probably not, but it’s never stopped you from telling me to before.”

She listened as the Doctor told his story to Susan and wasn’t paying attention when Alec turned on the Ninth Doctor and fired. She could have kicked herself for not being more observant but that was almost always the story of her life, a day late and a dollar short. Whipping out both her guns she turned them on Alec putting Seven behind her just in case Alec turned his attention back to him “Dead Man Walking!”. Even though the man Alec fired upon wasn’t her Doctor it was still the Doctor, so she still felt like she had to protect him.

Ace fired several times till her guns registered as empty, then moved her thumbs up dropping the clips and moved the guns under her jacket where she had extra clips on a rig stripped to her back replacing the clips and continuing firing.