Sorry for not posting yesterday, but my stomach was hurting, and it still hurts, so I might not post tomorrow
And I'm still listening to Big Finish audiobooks and other stories, so this can feel like a Doctor Who
current rewriting this whole story
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England, 2006.
The air was damp in that peculiar way only London managed: like the city itself was sweating under the weight of its own history. Rain wasn't falling, not really, but the clouds kept threatening, and the gutters smelled of petrol and rotting leaves.
The Engineer loved it.
Not the smell, though she found decay charming in its own way, but the possibility. The United Kingdom in 2006 was a nexus of tiny accidents, bruises waiting to happen. Step on a bus, someone would spill coffee on a stranger, and the stranger's laptop would spark,
The Time Lord's Law: Murphy's Law on steroids. Wherever a Time Lord went, things went wrong. Problems show up.
She had noticed the pattern almost immediately after reviewing what she remembered about the Doctor. Wherever he landed, something happened. Sometimes there were Daleks. Sometimes Cybermen. Sometimes the local government had been replaced by aliens. Sometimes there was a haunted television or living statues or an angry bit of sentient space mold that had decided humanity needed to die before Tuesday.
Her draft theory on this had been simple enough. If the strange relationship between Time Lords and causality meant trouble naturally gathered around them, then she could use herself as bait. Instead of sitting around waiting for the universe to eventually throw something dangerous through her bedroom window, she could walk through areas where ordinary trouble already existed and let probability do some of the work.
Which she is going to abuse a time lord's Murphy's Law that attracts problems, so she can get resources and knowledge; hopefully she gets her hands on some alien tech without UNIT coming down on her
This was London. There were several million people living here; the city had alien invasions often enough that UNIT probably kept forms specifically labeled Unidentified Extraterrestrial Incident, and somewhere beneath all the normal human nonsense there were black markets selling technology that had fallen out of spaceships.
The Engineer had figured out she could use that.
"XP farming," she muttered to herself, sprawled upside down on a cheap hostel bunk in Camden Town. "Grind the mobs, loot the shinies, level the stats. Same principle. Except instead of boars or goblins, it's alien parasites and eldritch time-crabs."
She tilted her head, humming thoughtfully before speaking aloud to the silent presence in her mind.
"Hey, System, do Time Lords even have religion? They don't strike me as the kneeling-and-praying type. problroy"
[It's… complicated. By nature, the Time Lords are not a religious people, unlike the Dark Age Time Lords. They pride themselves on logic, science, and control. However, their history is steeped in superstition, cults, and reverence for higher beings. Roughly half of them give worship directly or indirectly to the Menti Celesti: the personifications of the primal forces of the multiverse, such as Death, Life, Fate, and Time.]
Her brows shot up. She let out a low whistle.
"Half the smug time-bureaucrats pray to cosmic personifications? Damn, those things must be heavy hitters."
[Correct. Each of the Menti Celesti operates on a scale far beyond the Eternals or other cosmic hierarchies. Their classification falls into Tier 1-T+, meaning they are transcendent entities who can influence or erase not only all possible worlds but also realities that are logically or metaphysically impossible.]
She blinked. "Okay… is that power-scaling talk? Because that went right over my head."
[(😮💨) To clarify: "1-T" means Transcendent beings who transcend all logically possible worlds. The "+" signifies they go beyond even that—shaping or destroying realities that cannot, by definition, exist. They stand outside the framework of logic itself.]
She leaned back, a slow grin tugging at her lips.
"Well damn… Mommy Time is busted, OP."
She kept walking. The other problem was that she was not particularly good at fighting yet. That fact really annoyed her more than she wanted to admit. Especially knowing the doctor is a better fighter than her while being a pacifist (when he remembers he's a pacifist). I know that cause hes like over 9000 years old, or is it 2 billion oof bro that old acting like a kid kinda creepy
Her body was absurd compared to a human one. She was stronger, faster, tougher (the next generation the human race is living in my basement!), kehehe couldn't help myself love lab rat what was I thinking about?
Ahh yes, and much harder to injure. Her reflexes were already developing in strange directions because her perception of space was not entirely limited to three dimensions anymore. She could occasionally move in ways that looked wrong from an ordinary human perspective, mostly because her body understood angles that human anatomy had never needed to consider.
Unfortunately, none of that automatically made her skilled other than her weird fighting style of random bullshit. Being faster than someone did not mean she knew where to put her feet or what mostly likely going to happen: her getting picked up and body slammed. Having stronger hands did not mean she knew when to grab.
Seeing a punch coming was useful, but only if she stopped leaning away too early and accidentally giving the person another opening or when to attack their opening. Her first attempts at practicing alone had been humbling, and that meant falling on her ass.
The System had eventually displayed: [Unarmed Combat: Level 2]
She had really stared at it hard.
"Two?"
[Correct.]
"I'm a Time Lord or Lady, whatever god time lady doesn't sound good like time lord."
[Correct again.]
"I have higher-dimensional spatial awareness that should make that higher."
[Correct.]
"I can perceive temporal displacement."
[Correct.]
"And I'm level two at punching people."
[Correct skill issue.]
She had spent nearly five minutes arguing with an interface.
So now she was out looking for practical experience to restore her honor. I'm way better than these little primitive monkeys; anything they can do she can do 100 better. She thought to herself while walking with her back straight, walking like a noble, then a reborn poor goth girl.
Engineer, stop walking, and her eyes widened. What the hell did she just say?! She would never say that, especially cause the master and some other time lords lose to these "primitive." Is this a side effect of being a time lord looking down on everyone? I think I saw that when picking this race
She went to her system to check this mental problem, and she found the problem which she forgot about, which to fair who won't being a time lord feeling sooo gooood
[Hubris – Every perk comes with an instinctive arrogance you won't take mortal issues as a problem; resisting it is a lifelong battle.]
When she read it, there was only one word going through her head: "shit that's going to be a problem. Can't I just get that removed…without her brain being messed with? Looking down on mortal problems is going to cause a lot of pain in the future; just look at the Dalek they were just a pitiful mortal race, then the slug started a time war.
Preferably practical experience that deserved to be punched and hopefully not get stabbed.
THIS is London. British people are about that life…damn wish I had my TikTok ughhh i need to get that TARDIS super phone
She had assumed the process would be simple. Go outside after dark, wander through the less pleasant parts of the city, wait until somebody started doing something illegal, and then introduce their face to whatever solid object happened to be nearby. Afterward she could search them for alien technology, stolen equipment, unusual information, or anything else the System considered useful enough to give her experience.
It was basically grinding random encounters.
At least, that had been the plan.
Instead, she had spent most of the evening walking around Camden while seeing absolutely nothing worth interfering with. There had been several drunk people, one argument outside a pub, a teenager attempting to steal a road sign, and somebody selling what she was almost certain was marijuana behind a takeaway restaurant.
None of that seemed worth the effort.
The teenager had eventually dropped the road sign anyway.
She had been disappointed.
"You know, Gotham makes this look much easier," she quietly complained while walking beneath a railway bridge, her hands tucked into the pockets of her long black coat. "Batman goes outside for twenty minutes and immediately finds eight armed robbers, three corrupt cops, somebody trafficking weapons, and a clown doing terrorism."
The System answered inside her head with its usual complete lack of sympathy.
[Gotham City is fictional.]
"Technicality gotham is New Jersey, and we are literally in Doctor Who right now, you know, the madman that recreated the Big Bang from a box."
[You are currently comparing metropolitan crime statistics to a fictional city designed specifically to generate stories about crime, and canon has 10 deep curses on it.]
"Still sounds like an excuse."
The Engineer stepped around a puddle and continued down the street.
She had dressed differently tonight because she was beginning to understand that if she intended to do this regularly, she probably needed something better than ordinary clothing. Her trench coat remained because she liked it far too much to abandon it, although underneath she had changed into a fitted black tactical suit built from materials she had purchased, stolen, modified, or quietly removed from abandoned alien equipment.
The suit was still primitive by Gallifreyan standards, but that was not saying much. Most things were primitive by Gallifreyan standards.
A reinforced corset-like chest section protected her ribs without restricting movement; several belts carried tools and whatever questionable objects she had collected recently, while the fitted trousers had thin protective plates worked around the thighs, knees, and hips. Her boots had enough grip to climb wet metal and enough reinforcement that kicking somebody in the ribs would hurt them considerably more than it hurt her.
And hopefully, when she gets better stuff be able to kick a sword without any problem, maybe even break the sword. She starts day dreaming of a cool anime style fighting with her in it, so cool, and it's going to happen if I don't get game over.
She had also sewn an Omega symbol into the coat. There was no practical reason for that. It looked cool, and that sometimes was enough; life was like that
She at first didn't like it, but she was drawn to it, and now it's growing on her. "I hope the Time Lord Omega won't kill me for taking the name and symbol for myself and little bityy tardis." Of course, Omega probably won't kill her like a normal person, knowing how Time Lords' sense of humor is. I'm betting he's going to kick me in a dying micro-universe he controls to make me wish I was dead
The purple streaks running through the front of her otherwise black hair were impossible to hide for long, although she had tied most of it behind her head tonight. Her eyes were currently suppressing most of their natural glow,
Which she found out she could do after playing with the glow in the mirror, the best use of 3 hours ever, and that caused her to know of was another problem she had discovered with her eyes
People did not enjoy looking closely at her eyes. The first few times she looked at someone, they flinched after making eye contact; she had worried there might be something wrong with her regeneration.
Then she realized she could make it worse on purpose. That discovery had been wonderful.
She was still young for a time lord that; several abilities came more naturally than others, and controlling how humans perceived her was something she was only beginning to understand. It was not exactly invisibility, and she certainly could not perform the sort of complicated perception manipulation an experienced Time Lord might use, but she could encourage people to overlook certain details.
She could also do the opposite. That had potential heheheheh. A lot of potential. She thought, rubbing her hands together
A distant shout reached her from farther down the road. The Engineer stopped walking. Another shout followed, then the sound of something metallic striking pavement. Her head turned. "That sounded promising pls don't be a creakhead again." She immediately headed toward it.
The street curved around an older industrial building with several shuttered shops at ground level. There were fewer pedestrians here, which probably explained why the four men had decided it was a good place to drag somebody between two parked vans.
Engineer slowed when she noticed the knife. "Finally." She was getting annoyed with the lack of aliens or even crime; she remembered the doctor getting into big problems by just breathing!! And all she gets is some drunks!! This is discrimination; I vote for all time lord to be equal!
[Potential violent crime detected.]
"Yes, I can see that I'm not blind, you know." She rolled her eyes at her system. "One of these days I'm going to know who built you and what they were drinking." She let out a
One man had his arm around another man's neck while a second searched his pockets. Two more stood nearby, one holding the knife and the other watching the road.
She tiptoed backward before anyone noticed her. Nice and slow
The System seemed confused. [You are moving away from the incident.]
"I know." She walked behind one of the vans while thinking of a devious plan that would put the fear of god into them
[Clarification requested.] She was so random even her system was questioning her sanity
"I'm practicing my entrance when I step into something big; that difference in a time lord is in their PRESENTATION!"
The Engineer looked down at herself, adjusted her gloves, and started thinking. She could simply walk over. That seemed sooo boring. She could also charge them, which was kinda dumb cause one got a knife. Also boring.
She could come from above- hmmm, yes, pull a Batman that way cooler. Her eyes moved toward the fire escape running along the side of the building.
A smile slowly appeared. "Oh, this is going to be stupid but godamn worth it for the cool points."
[That statement applies to a concerning number of your decisions since your reborn, which is concerning cause you only been alive for a week]
"Thank you and fuck you right back. What I do is in the name of science, you bugout bastich."
[You stole that from Lobo, you second-rate time baby] her system shot back at her, almost sounding annoyed, which the engineer took as a feat to be remembered even though she can't tell anyone that she beat a voice in her head without them thinking she's crazy
Engineer opened her mouth to deliver a flippant response, then closed it again and immediately ignored her system and started to climb up.
Her physical strength made the first section embarrassingly easy. She caught the bottom ladder, pulled herself up, not before doing a pull-up on it, then moved along the metal structure without making much noise. By the time she reached the second floor, she could see the entire scene beneath her.
One victim. No firearms visible, which is really good; she didn't want to test if she was fast enough right now to dodge bullets Engineer crouched near the railing Then she deliberately let her eyes brighten. Violet rings popped up and turned inside both irises.
She quietly tested the sound she had been practicing earlier. A low death whistle passed between her lips. It was not particularly scary or loud, but it did not need to be.
The man watching the road looked around. "What the hell is that?" his buddy didn't answer him their to was looking around for the source
Engineer had covered her mouth because she almost laughed. " At least I know people in this universe dont look up like in DC." This was already fantastic. The lookout stepped away from the group.
"Hey, maybe we should go; that didn't sound right?"
One of the others looked annoyed. "Don't tell me your afrear of Someone whistling?" one of the other guys joined in. "Probably somebody walking by. Stop worrying."
The Engineer lowered herself from the fire escape until she was hanging from both hands behind him.
She briefly wondered whether this was unnecessarily childish. Then she remembered he was a prick helping rob somebody with a knife. Her concern disappeared.
She dropped with a loud thud, with her flinching at the noise. 'Yeah, I need to fix that later,' when I get rich, rich. Her boots landed behind him.
The man turned.
He had enough time to see a pale face, black hair with purple streaks, and two purple glowing eyes before the Engineer grabbed the front of his jacket and drove him into the side of the van.
She had intended to control the force, but she overshot it a little too much in her defense
The entire vehicle rocked which she cringed at the human dent on the side of the van. "Oh...errum that my bad you still alive" she got a moan of pure pain when she heard that she let out a small sigh grateful her first kill isn't some hum- PITYFUL APE-an
Engineer froze at the other voice in her that she knows for a fact isn't her system or the tardis seed. "HEY, WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE HITTING GEORGE LIKE THAT? ONLY I CAN DO THAT, LITTLE GIRL." The screaming snaps her out of her mind and back to what she was doing. She saw one of George's friends running towards her with a knife. The man with the knife shouted something that was probably supposed to sound threatening; she didn't pay attention because her main focus was on the knife.
Dont want to end up on the new 'this just in, some random alien got stabbed in an alleyway by a couple junkies.' I'll be a laughing stock of Gallifrey. I won't be able to show my beautiful face anywhere; I'll be homeless dad/mom in RV TARDIS like the Doctor.
She turned toward the one coming at her. "Can you come at me slowly?" She raised both hands. "I really need the practice, thank you, and I promise not to hurt you too much."
The knife wielder rushed her. "Good boy," engineer purred in a deep voice. While the attacker tried to stab toward her stomach. Engineer moved sideways, not backward like she was doing before. That was the first thing she corrected when she realized she was giving up enough space to the attacker that they could follow up with another attack while not giving her an opening
Her left hand caught his wrist while her right pushed against his elbow. She rotated with him instead of trying to stop his momentum directly, and the movement immediately felt cleaner than what she had been doing before.
His shoulder struck the van, but this time the van didn't move from the force, which she would happily take as a win in her books
She then twisted his wrist to make him drop the weapon when she saw the knife drop. She kicked it as far as she could while she was not looking, the thug tried punching her with his other hand. She easily ducked beneath it
'Hmm, that was bad. Too low.' Her balance was shifted badly
The third criminal looked between her and the others.
"What the fuck are you?" She had considered answering, but then the fourth man cracked that by trying to hit her from behind. 'Ahh, the act of jumping kinda wish I was in America right now i know i can find fights there.' she happy muse to herself
Her eyes caught some movement through the van's reflection and with her enhance reflexs. She turned in an instant to dodge to the left of the first coming at her. His fist passed beside her cheek. She quickly caught his arm before bringing her hand up
Crunch "ahhhhhhhhh"
Broken his arm, then kneed him in the face to shut him up
[Unarmed Combat proficiency increased.]
The Engineer looked toward where the last man was to be but found He was already running, leaving his guys behind
She just flat stared at his back. "Wow, that was just plain rude." She then full-sprinted after him. "This is going to level my speed. This has been a good damn day, well for me anywhere."
He was fast for a human; too bad she was not human. She caught him before he reached the corner.
Instead of tackling him, she jumped onto the side of a parked car, pushed off, and landed directly in front of him. The man stopped so suddenly he nearly fell over." LEAVE ME ALONE, YOU FREAK." Engineer straightened up
"Hello there, general ps i would rather be a freak then low class bum," she replied without thinking much about what he said but he didnt seen want to give up look at her eyes before looking away from seem glowing dull eyes. "Just please let me. I'll give all I've got on me trust."
Engineer looked at him funny. "Oooo, so you going to give me like 10 dollars? You're literally robbing for change money, bro. You and your friends are the definition of poor; you giving up everything is nothing."
The little shit tried to sneak punch her, but he was way too slow for her; she effortlessly dodged with her hands in her coat pocket. "Whoa, not even going to acknowledge the meme. Oh wait, did it even come out yet? Oops, spoilers."
The guy was getting really tried hes stamina is so low… he's poor girlfriend or, more likely, a prostitute, but he kept trying to punch her with everything he's got. She actually appreciated the dedication.
But before she could realize the Hubris perk was starting to affect her again, which would cause her to lower her guard, the thug landed a solid punch to her face. Her head turned with the impact.
The punch hurt slightly, but she didn't care; all she saw was red. She slowly looked back at him "Good punch." His expression changed. "What the fuck." he whispered in a horrified tone of voice cause her face was glitching with her true form; the face he punched now had 2 pair of eyes staring dead at him with clock-like eyes
He backed away.
"You should probably run," the engineer said without any emotion, her tone flat like a robot really to do its orders
He stared at her before saying, "Wait, wait!! I give up; no need to do something extreme. I'm sorry, man." he even put up his hands
She smiled and let every violet ring inside her eyes start turning. Then she whistled."Oh, now you're sorry I refuse your surrender. Get back up or don't, I don't care, I'm going to hurt you immensely HUMANAnD i'M GoInG to likE iT." She started to break down in her other form, making her sound demonic
The man barely had enough time to process what she said before Engineer moved.
He brought his arms up out of instinct, probably thinking he could protect his face long enough to talk her down, but she did not aim for his face. Her fist slammed into his stomach instead, hard enough to fold him over and force every bit of air out of his lungs at once. His hands immediately dropped toward his abdomen, leaving the side of his head completely open, and Engineer caught him by the back of his jacket before he could fall.
"No, no. Stay up."
Her voice still sounded wrong. The normal tone was buried underneath several others that seemed to arrive a fraction too early or too late, while the four violet eyes currently occupying her face watched him from slightly different angles.
She pulled him upright. Then she slapped him back to the ground again.
Her fist caught him across the jaw and sent him stumbling sideways into the wall. He bounced off the brickwork, one hand reaching out for balance, but she was already beside him before he could properly recover. She grabbed his wrist, turned beneath his arm, and drove her shoulder into his chest.
The man hit the ground hard.
He groaned and immediately curled onto his side.
A few nights ago, she would have simply thrown him using raw strength. This time she had actually used his balance against him.
Good.
That thought only made her angrier. He had punched her, and it was not because it had hurt that badly. It really had not. Her body could handle considerably more punishment than his could.
It was the principle.
He immediately raised his hands again like that was going to stop her."Please, seriously, I'm done. I said I'm sorry."
She tilted her head.
Her four eyes turned independently for half a second before settling on him again.
"You said sorry after you realized I could hurt you."
"What?"
"That's different." He stared at her, probably thinking she was insane when she only half. She reached down and caught him by the front of his shirt. "Sorry before consequences means something. Sorry after consequences usually means you want the consequences to stop."
He tried to speak his case. "That's not what I meant," anddd he sucks at it
She rolled her eyes. "It usually is."She hauled him upright. He tried pushing her hands away. Engineer drove her forehead into his nose.
His head snapped backward, and he staggered away with both hands covering his face.
"Oh, fuck!"
He took another step backward.
She took one forward.
He moved backward again.
The Engineer followed.
His shoulders touched the wall.
He realized there was nowhere else to go.
"Look, lady."
"Engineer."
"What?"
"My name."
He swallowed.
"Okay. Engineer. I get it. I fucked up."
She stopped in front of him. "You did."
"I'm sorry."
"You've mentioned that."
"I'm not gonna do it again."
Her expression remained blank. "That would be very difficult anyway for your future self to do ." His eyes dropped toward her hands.
That was his mistake. She started whistled before dragging him to the alleyway, and his screaming was the only thing heard on that block