//------------------------------// // Part 1 The Doctor is In: Chapter 2 What Did I Just Say?! // Story: The Destroyer and Her Doctor // by Justice3442 //------------------------------// The Destroyer and Her Doctor Part 1 The Doctor is In Chapter 2 What Did I Just Say?! The man currently laying under Debra Hart extended his right hand upwards and diagonally. “’Ollo! I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.” He gave Debra a friendly smile as bloodied and screaming people ran past them. “I’m the Doctor.” Debra shook her head as if to clear it, her eyes drifting slightly as she did. She took the Doctor’s hand in her own and gave it a shake. “Debra. Debra Hart-Why are we exchanging greetings?! The floor is full of giant beetle monsters that are trying to eat us!” The Doctor chuckled. “Sorry! You threw me off by stealing my line. Erm… The ‘run!’ bit, not the bit about my eyes… Well, Debra, if you’d be so kind as to let me up.” “Oh!” Debra said as her cheeks flushed slightly. She began to stand up, stumbling as she came to her feet and catching herself on the off-white wall. The Doctor quickly rose to his feet, reached into his jacket with his left hand, and pulled out a cylindrical silver object with a blue tip. He began to poke a few buttons on the side of it with his other hand. Debra leaned forward back onto her feet, watching as employees sprinted past her and the Doctor. “Uh… I can’t help but notice you’re not running.” “No,” the Doctor answered simply as he continued to fiddle with his device. “Okay… Well… It’s just that we might be eaten, and…” “Not eaten, luv,” the Doctor replied without looking up. “Dismembered maybe, but not eaten. Tamaran beetles don’t eat organic matter, they subside on a different chemical compound entirely.” Debra glanced up as more people ran or limped by, noting that the amount of injuries everyone had sustaining seemed to be increasing even as the number of people who ran by became smaller. She scrunched her lips up. “Dismembered then. Isn’t that something we should maybe, I don’t know… avoid?” “Sure! But there’s people trapped up here still and we can’t have that, now can we?” The Doctor asked, now looking up at Debra. “Erm… Alright, so what are you doing?” “Well,” the Doctor began as he looked back down at his device. “I’m attempting to dial in the specific frequency to scare the beetles off. You see, a specific frequency brought them here and—” “What, from space?!” Debra asked in disbelief. “More like a dimensional tunnel through space. A primitive, but natural method of travel the beetles use to find new nesting locations. A little skill that they evolved when the Tamaraneans of Tamaran almost hunted them to extinction on their home planet.  They just happened to be passing by when something that mimicked the Tamaran beetle mating call went off and gathered them all to this building.” Debra’s mind reeled with all the words and concepts she was supposed to accept as fact all of a sudden. Her shoulders slumped and her face took on a slightly defeated look as if she was suddenly accepting a new degree of absurdity to her life. “Right, of course…” She noted the stampede of people had stopped while the screaming on the floor had not. This was accompanied by the sound of bending metal. Debra turned to face down the hallway and frowned heavily. “Uh… The Doctor?” “Almost got it,” the Doctor replied. “And you can just call me ‘Doctor’.” “Right… No surname?” The Doctor chuckled. “Naw, never had much use for one… Almost… Almost…” The sounds of screaming and trashing of metal increased as well as Debra’s heart rate. “… Almost… Do you really think my eyes are pretty? See, they’re quite new and I haven’t quite gotten—” “You’re asking me this NOW?!” The Doctor’s face lit up. “Got it!” he exclaimed, diving past Debra. “Allons-y!” Debra turned and attempted to give chase. “Allonso-WhaaaAAAAAAH!” Debra exclaimed as she suddenly took another nose dive for the floor, hitting it with a ‘Thud!’ ‘AieAieAieAieAieAieAieAieAieAieAieAie…’ Face down on the floor, Debra tilted her head and perked an ear up as a high-pitched sound pierced the air. She woozily got to her feet as quickly as she could and continued following the Doctor. Turning a corner in what used to be a room full of rows of cubicles, she could see a mass of the green beetles seemingly transfixed by the Doctor’s device that was emitting the noise. The Doctor himself was looking back and forth between the beetles and the device with a concerned look on his face, as a group of her ex-coworkers huddled behind several, now mostly smashed, cubicle walls in a corner of the office building. Debra poked her head out from behind the Doctor and gave her ex-coworkers a stern look. “Well, don’t just sit there! Run!” The office workers quickly scrambled out of their damaged makeshift fort, past the Doctor and Debra and into the hallway. “Problem?” Debra asked the Doctor as he stood holding the device, the beetles remaining rooted to their current location seemingly staring at the blue light as the device continued to admit it’s high-pitched tone of ‘AieAieAieAieAieAieAieAieAieAieAieAie…’ “In a manner of speaking,” the Doctor said, turning his head away from the wailing device. “I think your eyes are enchanting.” Debra could feel her cheeks turn hot. Did he… Did he just say the word ‘enchanting’?! No one has EVER complimented my eyes like that and-WAIT A MINUTE! She frowned. “And that’s a problem?” “No, no,” the Doctor said. “Just returning your earlier compliment with something I noticed about you.” “Right…” Debra said as she felt the burning sensation on her cheeks increase. She caught sight of the beetles that were transfixed by the device in the Doctor’s hand. “So what’s the problem?!” Debra asked in an impatient tone. “This frequency was supposed to scare the beetles away, not keep them in place.” He frowned. “This species must have evolved a bit since I last encountered them.” Debra furrowed her brow. “What? An evolution process like that would take several generations!” She looked at the beetles again, taking into account their large size. “Don’t tell me these things have a short lifespan.” “Oh no, it’s quite long. Several decades at least.” Debra gave the Doctor a sideways glance. He looked to be in his 20s, maybe early thirties if the aging process had been exceptionally good to him. The Doctor extended his finger along his device. “Hold on, I think I got it…” The tone of the device changed slightly. ‘AiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiEAiE…’ “There we go, that should…” The beetles suddenly lit out a series of squeals and hisses, exploding in all directions. Some of those directions aiming towards Debra and the Doctor. The Doctor recoiled and reached for Debra’s hand. “Or not! Run!” “WhoaaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Debra cried as the Doctor yanked her along. She followed in a clumsy gait as some of the giant insects gave chase. The pair rushed back down the hall they had arrived, their pursuers scuttling and flying after them. The beetles spit hisses, gnashed mandibles, and flailed insectoid limbs as they went. The Doctor continued talking out loud as Debra continued screaming. “Now, maybe if I pitch the tone up…” “… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…” “… and adjust the temporal modulation…” “… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…” “… as well as the change the rate of fluctuations…” “… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…” “…  BAM! THAT might be just what we’re looking for!” “… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA…” “… Of course we’ll need a safe place for me to make…” AS the two were nearing a door with a red ‘EXIT’ sign above it, Debra felt a tug on her wet shirt that was flopping behind her and the sound of it ripping. The pitch of her scream suddenly shifted. “AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!” The beetles in the immediate vicinity suddenly became a flurry of wings and hissing as they all backed off and scattered from the pair. “That’s it!” the Doctor shouted as he threw open the heavy metal door, practically threw Debra through it and stepped to the other side slamming it behind him. Debra barely caught herself on the metal railing, a mere foot before she would have tumbled down cement stairs. Her heart pounded fiercely and she could practically hear the blood rushing in her head. “Wha… huff… What is… puff… it?” she asked as she tried to catch her breath. “Your scream!” the Doctor said. “That was exactly the tone we needed!” he gave Debra a concerned look. “You’re not hurt, are you?” Debra stood up straight. Holding onto the railing with her right hand, she tugged at her wet shirt with the other. Pulling the back towards her front, she could see a jagged rip in it. “No… One of them just caught my shirt.” The Doctor gave Debra another, all too brief, dazzling smile. “Brilliant. Erm... You wouldn’t happen to know the exact frequency you just screamed at, would you?” Debra paused and looked upwards, almost as if the answer was printed on her eyelids. She shook her head. “No, sorry… I wasn’t concentrating enough to note it,” she answered without a hint of sarcasm. “Bugger,” the Doctor replied. His face suddenly lit up. “Could you scream again? I’m sure if you can reproduce that exact tone I can adjust my sonic screwdriver to match.” “Sonic screwdriver?” “It’s…” the Doctor paused for a moment. “It’s not important right now.” Debra furrowed her brow and gave the Doctor a frustrated hum. “What is important is that you scream for me!” Debra scrunched her lips, looked upwards for a moment, inhaled, and yelled as loud as she could. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!” she cried. The sound reverberated off the cement walls. The Doctor shook his head. “No, that wasn’t quite it. You had more of an ‘E’ sound going on.” “AAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEE!” “Closer!” the Doctor said. “But I think you had another vowel thrown in there. Debra took a couple of deep breaths. “Okay, I think… I think this time I—” With a resounding ‘crunch!’ the wall next to the fire door suddenly burst outward revealing a hissing and flailing beetle. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”  The beetle suddenly recoiled and flew backwards, leaving a massive hole it had been sticking out of. “Got it!” the Doctor cried triumphantly as he touched his sonic screwdriver once more. He threw open the fire door as his device squealed in a similar high-pitched tone. ‘AIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIE…’ Any nearby beetles scattered at the sound of the device, hissing, bumping into each other, and scrambling over one another in an attempt to get away from the sound. The Doctor and Debra stepped through the door as their former giant insect attackers fled in all directions. “Did… did that do it?” Debra asked. The Doctor shook his head and pushed a button on his sonic screwdriver, silencing it. “That’ll scare them away from us, but the beetles have certainly infested this entire building. We’ll need to reproduce the sound at a much larger scale.” Debra thought for a moment before her face lit up in a smile. “The P.A. system!” The Doctor looked up, taking note of the speakers along the walls and ceiling of the floor. “Brilliant!” Debra nodded. “There’s a control board and microphone in my boss’s office!” she said excitedly. Debra began to sprint off into the floor. “Follo-WHA!” Debra tripped over debris and hit the ground with a ‘thud!’ The Doctor rushed up to Debra’s side and began to lean down. “Are you al—” Debra shot back up to her feet and continued running towards an office door. “Follow me!” “—right…” The Doctor finished as he followed Debra. “Isn’t that ‘ex-boss’?!” he shouted after her. “Oh rub it in, why don’tcha!” Debra shot back as she reached the heavy wooden office door. She grabbed the doorknob, then tried to turn it and give it a yank in one quick motion. The knob and door held fast. “Locked!” Debra said. “No problem,” the Doctor said as he reached into his coat. “I can—” “But why…” Debra’s eyes shot open. “Mrs. Floribunda!” She turned to face the door. “She must still be in there!” “No, really,” the Doctor said as produced his sonic screwdriver. “I can just—” Debra banged her fist on the door. “Mrs. Floribunda!” she shouted. “Open up! We need to use the P.A. system!” “Debra?!” Came the call from inside the office. “Go away! I’m not opening that door!” “It’s a matter of life and death!” Debra cried. “Right,” the Doctor said. “So if you could just let go of the knob, and—” “It’s my life I’m worried about!” Mrs. Floribunda shot back. The Doctor sighed. “We don’t have—” “We don’t have time for this!” Debra exclaimed. She leaned her weight back away from the door and quickly thrust herself against the door, hitting it with a resounding ‘thud’ before sliding down the surface of the door and collapsing on the ground. The Doctor opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Debra looked up at him. “It’s no good!” she lamented. “My body doesn’t have the necessary weight behind it to generate enough force to break—“ ‘Buzzzzzzzzzzz’ ‘Click!’ Debra looked up in amazement as the Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver away from the knob and placed it back in his jacket. “Sonic screwdriver,” he said with a smile. “Never leave home without it.” He extended a hand and helped Debra up to her feet. The Doctor opened the door and motioned towards it. “After you!” Debra smiled just as she was greeted with, “How did you get that door open?! I DEMAND you leave immediately!” Debra turned to stare at Mrs. Floribunda, somehow perfectly communicating the word ‘Really?’ entirely through her expression. “We need to use the—” “I’ll call security!” Mrs. Floribunda screamed as she picked up a phone receiver. “THE BUILDING IS FULL OF GIANT KILLER BEETLES!” Debra exploded. “I SERIOUSLY DOUBT ANY SECURITY PERSONNEL ARE STILL IN THE BUILDING!” Debra began to advance towards the desk, stepping over the pictures, plaques, and trophies that still littered the floor. “Stay away! Listen—” Mrs. Floribunda began. “NO, YOU LISTEN!” The Doctor roared as he pointed an accusatory index finger. As she circled the desk, Debra tripped on one of the trophies, and crashed headlong into Mrs. Floribunda knocking her back into her chair. Debra landed across Mrs. Floribunda’s lap and the armrests before the entire chair fell forward towards the desk. Debra toppled to the ground as Mrs. Floribunda’s face hit the desk with a sickly ‘crunch!’ “I USUALLY YELL AT PEOPLE UNTIL THEY LISTEN TO ME IN THESE SITUATIONS!” the Doctor continued in his heated tone. “BUT I SEE THAT WON’T BE NECESSARY IN THIS CASE!” Debra’s index finger suddenly shot up from behind the desk. “I’m oooookaaaay!” she asserted. Her hand slowly lowered and she let out a frightful gasp. The Doctor quickly made his way to the other side of the desk as Debra rolled over Mrs. Floribunda onto her back. Mrs. Floribunda eyes were closed and her nose was misshapen and splattered with blood. Supporting herself on her hands as she sat on her rear. Debra’s lip began to quiver as her eyes began to fill up with tears. “I ka… I kill… I killed my boss!” she wailed. She tried to choke back the sobs that welled up in her throat. “Well lucky you!” The Doctor said as he knelt down and placed a pair of fingers on Mrs. Floribunda’s neck. “I’m sure you just lived the primary fantasy of many who’ve had the pleasure of working for her.” “It’s not… choke… It’s not… sob…” Debra bit her lower lip as tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’snotfunny!” “Right, sorry,” the Doctor said as he raised his fingers. “I was just having a laugh. She’s fine.” “She… sniff… She is?!” The Doctor stood up, reaching for both Debra’s hands and bringing her to her feet. “Weeeelllll, ‘fine’ in this case is a relative term. She broke her nose, is probably slightly concussed, and is out cold, but she’ll live.” From the ground. Mrs. Floribunda groaned softly. Debra let out a sigh of relief and shook her head. “For a moment there, I really thought I’d killed her. I’m not sure I could live with myself if I accidently murdered Mrs. Floribunda…” A slightly mischievous smile danced across Debra’s face. “But I can live with her having a broken nose and mild concussion.” Still holding Debra’s hands, the Doctor smiled cheerfully. “Oh, I like you.” Debra’s heart skipped a beat. The Doctor turned towards the desk, adjust the microphone and began turning knobs on the P.A. system. “Now, I just get the speakers working all over the building and...” The Doctor produced his sonic screwdriver. ‘AIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIEAIE…’ The high-pitched tone sounded throughout the entire building as a fever pitch of hisses, crashes, and shattered glass joined in. Debra steadied herself as this building itself shook and then… … … nothing. The Doctor looked up with a questioning expression for a moment then smiled to himself. “There! The beetles just did a dimensional space shift.” “Phew…” Debra circled to the front of the desk and collapsed against it. “Glad that’s over…” The Doctor circled to the other side of the desk and sat next to her. “Wellll… the beetles were just scared away from the building! Once the mating call ended, there was no longer a reason for the beetles to stay, so they likely found something they can eat. In all likelihood, they’ve just migrated to another building in the area that also has their food source.” “What?” Debra asked as her eyes went wide. “What?” The Doctor parroted. “De-Debra?” Mrs. Floribunda moaned from behind the desk. “Uh-oh,” Debra uttered as her face turned pale. The Doctor helped Debra up to her feet. “Problem?” “You’re unfairly tall!” Debra cried as she stepped over the items on the floor and made herself towards the door of the office. “And that’s a problem?!” the Doctor asked as he followed Debra. Debra smiled to herself. “Not really…”