Sorry, I missed posting on Monday, but Mom woke me up at 3 a.m., saying my dad was dying. He looked fine to me and was still talking, but we still called 911, and even they said he was fine. He then went to the hospital, but I still panicked and worried all day
8 pm Tuesday - looks like no problems tho hes alittle tried but seems fine to me. I now feel much better
Thursday - he's coming back home
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The figure wore a black and white coat that looked like it had survived several wars without ever receiving the basic courtesy of being repaired properly. Long sections of the fabric were scorched along the edges, Gallifreyan symbols had been stitched into the inner lining with silver thread, and several pieces of technology hung from belts around her waist like she had stopped caring whether anyone thought carrying that many weapons was excessive.
Engineer let out a whistle at the galifretan symbols; it looked really good even though the coat was heavily damaged. And Sheesh, that's a lot of weapons to openly carry, probably more with some kinda dimensional pocket filled with ammo or bombs
Her hair had changed too. Most of it was still dark, but with no purple anymore just thick white streaks ran through it now, especially around her temples. Shame she really liked the dark purple, while two pointed ears pushed through the mess in a way that immediately made the younger Engineer question several future life decisions.
Hmm, damn, I forgot the Time Lord can use non-human-like forms, though why an elf form?
Then there were the eyes, which were really weird because she never heard of a time lord in EU with something like that
They were violet like now, but that wasn't the strange part. Shapes moved inside them whenever she turned her head, circular patterns rotating behind the pupils like miniature clock faces deeper than normal biology should allow.
The younger Engineer stared at her future self through the stolen memory while thousands of warnings screamed across the System; luckily, she sped up her thought processing so time outside was like a slug pace, giving her good enough time to look around and record anything important on her omni-tool for later
Of all the questions available to her, one stubbornly forced itself to the front.
Why the fuck did future her look like a goth elf?
She would have liked several uninterrupted minutes to properly investigate that particular insult against causality, but the memory wasn't interested in giving her any time. Another flood of information passed through the connection, and the ruined UNIT relay around her temporarily disappeared beneath images taken from centuries that had not happened for her yet.
The alien city returned around her.
It stretched across an entire continent beneath a sky filled with burning ships, temporal storms, and Cyber warcraft hanging motionless inside pockets of distorted time. Buildings had been torn open by weapons powerful enough to leave glowing scars through kilometers of metal, while enormous conversion facilities continued operating beneath the city even as the surface collapsed around them.
Thousands of Cybermen marched through those ruins.
The Engineer recognized several designs immediately, but others were completely unfamiliar. Mondasian frames moved alongside Cybus models, Nightmare-era Cybermen marched beneath hovering command platforms, and heavier Cyber-Warriors carried weapons surrounded by temporal regulators that made her Omni-Tool desperately attempt to identify technology that hadn't technically been invented yet.
Some of the newer Cybermen barely resembled Cybermen at all; they kinda look like humanoid tanks with two shoulder cannons? Or snipers; hard to tell with their shity designs…damn clinkers
Their bodies had become thicker and more specialized, with multiple processors hidden beneath layered armor and some alien components grafted directly into their internal systems. Several carried weapons that manipulated localized space instead of firing conventional energy, while others possessed independent neural architecture specifically designed to avoid network attacks.
The younger Engineer felt her amusement fade. That last modification told her something important.
Future her had already hurt them badly enough that they had redesigned themselves specifically because of her.
Then she saw the older Engineer moving through them.
The younger Engineer had expected herself to fight intelligently. She had expected traps, tricks, hacking, temporal manipulation, and the usual collection of questionable ideas that somehow became successful after sufficient stubbornness.
She had not expected the rage.
Future Engineer slammed one hand against a Cyberman's chest and released a pulse through its armor that sent the machine crashing backward into three others. She didn't celebrate afterward, didn't make a joke, and didn't even watch the Cyberman hit the ground before turning toward the next target.
Another Cyberman fired.
Future Engineer raised her arm, and a translucent field caught the beam before bending it around her body. She immediately redirected the stored energy into the street beneath the Cyber formation, rupturing the ground and dropping several machines into the lower levels of the city.
The younger Engineer watched carefully. Something about future her felt wrong.
Angry.
Deeply, constantly angry, like she was going to get a red lantern ring
Future Engineer moved like somebody who had stopped viewing Cybermen as interesting opponents a very long time ago. Every strike was efficient, every command was delivered without humor, and every time one of the machines mentioned conversion or upgrading, something colder appeared across her expression.
A Cyber commander stepped through the smoke ahead of her.
"ENGINEER. RESISTANCE REMAINS ILLOGICAL."
Future Engineer turned toward it while several damaged Cybermen reorganized behind their commander. "You really need another sentence."
"CYBER-EVOLUTION IS INEVITABLE."
She just rolled her eyes? Clock eyes? At that "That one is somehow worse."
The younger Engineer almost smiled at that because apparently some things survived several centuries of trauma.
The Cyber commander raised its weapon, but the future Engineer had already moved. She crossed the distance between them far faster than her younger self currently could, grabbed the weapon arm, twisted beneath it, and drove the upgraded Omni-Tool directly against the commander's exposed neck connection.
The Cyber commander raised its weapon, but future Engineer had already moved. She crossed the distance between them far faster than her younger self currently could, grabbed the weapon arm, twisted beneath it, and drove the upgraded Omni-Tool directly against the commander's exposed neck connection.
Engineer watching just had her mouth open. O_O GODAMN that speed and strength, that wayyy higher than 250 stats at least
Gallifreyan symbols spread across the Cyberman's armor. Its weapon shut down. Then its legs followed.
Future Engineer leaned closer while the machine struggled to restore control.
"I've watched your kind invade worlds that never even learned your name. I've watched you convert refugees because they happened to be available, and I've watched you tear through timelines because somebody gave you technology you were never supposed to touch."
The Cyberman's head jerked toward her.
"EMOTION IS IRRELEVANT."
Future Engineer's expression hardened.
"Then you're about to discover how relevant mine can become."
Engineer swallowed quietly. Oh Yeah. Future her definitely has issues. Several centuries' worth, apparently.
Her System attempted to analyze the behavioral differences.
[Observed personality variance exceeds predicted maturation patterns.]
[Possible contributing factors include chronological trauma, repeated warfare, dimensional exposure, regeneration variance, or external influence.]
The younger Engineer grimaced mentally. "Could you maybe not diagnose future me while she's committing cybernetic homicide?"
[Correction: Cybernetic neutralization.]
She just let out a sigh at that. "Thank you. Much more polite." The memory shifted before the System could complain.
Future Engineer stood upon a broken platform overlooking the city while the Cyber army gathered below her. Hundreds became thousands as reinforcements emerged from conversion facilities, underground transport lines, and temporary gateways connected to several different time periods.
Behind those forces, the ground opened. The younger Engineer initially thought another facility was rising beneath the city. Then she realized the facility was the city.
Kilometers of machinery extended beneath the surface, with artificial brains, temporal engines, factories, processors, and gigantic information cores interconnected through an architecture so complicated that even looking at the holographic structure made her System pause.
[Cyber-Nexus structure detected.]
Several holographic windows surrounded her, but she wasn't alone anymore.
Golden light appeared around the edge of the platform. Gallifreyan writing formed inside it, along with a sound that kinda sounded like a TARDIS, but its dematerialization sound profile is distinctly different from the iconic "vworp-vworp" wheezing and groaning noise: a smoother, highly digitized, and high-frequency energy hum
Kind of like a KH-CHHH-vwwwww-THWIP.
: AN I don't know what the newer TARDIS sounds like, so I just made one with the end being a Spider-Man web-shoot sound lol
Several Time Lords stepped through. Oh fuck, those are not ordinary Time Lords either. Members of the High Council.
Their robes were heavier and more ceremonial than anything someone should reasonably wear while standing inside an active battlefield, but several carried weapons beneath those robes, while others immediately began forming temporal restraints around the platform.
But to her, unlike the simple record from what she guesses is some spy nanodrone, she can see their true form, and Jesus, they are big…pause. Wait, why do the forms look more soild/human then mine
[time lord form pics]
Wait a fucking second, our true form wears clothes!..that means I'm butt naked! On the other side, I want to know where I can get some of that drip fr
Future Engineer turned to face them, her expression now much less friendly than it had been during the fight against the Cybermen.
"Leave," she ordered.
One of the Councillors raised his hand. "The Lord President commands your immediate return."
Future Engineer slowly surveyed the battlefield before turning her gaze back to them.
"I'm busy," she replied.
"The Cyber conflict is beneath the immediate concerns of Gallifrey," the Councillor insisted.
This statement elicited a reaction from her, not a large one, but enough for Future Engineer to tighten her grip around the Omni-Tool. The younger Engineer noticed the change.
Several golden bands suddenly appeared around Future Engineer's arms, waist, neck, and legs. Temporal restraints expanded around her body before locking into the surrounding platform, while another High Council member raised a device that generated a containment field around her.
Future Engineer looked down at herself.
Then she looked toward the Councillors. "You came into my battlefield and tied me up."
"The Lord President predicted that cooperation would be unlikely." Future Engineer stared at him for several seconds.
"You should probably become concerned about what else he predicted." The temporal restraints tightened.
Gallifreyan symbols rotated through several configurations while the High Council began attempting to pull her backward through a controlled transmat corridor.
The younger Engineer studied the restraints.
Those were serious. High Council authorization. Multidimensional locks. Temporal anchoring. Some kinda Biological lock.
Someone had designed those restraints specifically for a Time Lord who knew how Time Lord technology worked. Unfortunately, they had apparently forgotten who they were restraining.
Future Engineer exhaled through her nose before letting out a laugh, looking them in the eye. "Chains? You're funny. "
Something shifted behind her eyes. The violet clockwork structures rotated. Then her entire body changed.
The younger Engineer couldn't properly describe what happened because the memory seemed incapable of displaying everything involved. For an instant, future Engineer stopped fitting inside three dimensions. Shapes unfolded behind her silhouette, overlapping versions of the same body occupying slightly different positions while Gallifreyan symbols appeared across spaces that didn't seem to exist.
The temporal restraints immediately started malfunctioning.
[Multidimensional manifestation detected.]
[Biological classification unavailable.]
[Temporal geometry unstable.]
The younger Engineer's thoughts stumbled. "Excuse me, what the fuck did I become?"
Future Engineer pulled one arm outward. The first restraint snapped apart. She moved again.
Every Cyberman around the platform stopped moving. Not because Future Engineer had attacked them. They were looking upward. Something descended through the temporal storm above the city.
A Gallifreyan war TARDIS appeared first, followed by several others. Their exteriors were nothing like conventional TARDISes, with armored dimensional shells surrounded by rotating defense fields and weapon systems large enough to make the younger Engineer immediately jealous.
Then another presence entered the transmission.
Even through a stolen memory, the younger Engineer recognized the authority in his voice.
Rassilon.
His image appeared above the battlefield through a projection large enough that half the city could probably see him. He wore the ceremonial symbols of Gallifrey's presidency, while several members of the High Council stood behind him.
Future Engineer broke the final restraint around her neck, the metal clinking as it fell to the ground. She shot a defiant glare at Rassilon, who stood under the dim light, his posture relaxed but his eyes sharp.
"I expected resistance," he said, crossing his arms, a hint of a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.
Future Engineer rubbed one wrist, the sting of confinement still fresh. "You kidnapped me during a battle."
Rassilon raised an eyebrow, unfazed. "You abandoned Gallifrey."
"I left Gallifrey," she shot back, taking a step closer, her voice rising with intensity.
"You were summoned," he replied, his tone now cold, as if delivering a sentence. "I declined," she declared, standing tall, defiance radiating from her. Rassilon's expression hardened ever so slightly, the amusement fading. "
You do not decline the Lord President." Future Engineer turned to the Cyber army surrounding the platform, the metallic forms glimmering ominously in the shadows. She looked back at Rassilon, her eyes ablaze with determination. "Apparently, I just did."
The younger Engineer observed the exchange, his interest piqued. This wasn't the usual hostility directed at an annoying politician; it was personal. Future her hated him. Not casually either, but with a deep-seated fury that simmered just below the surface.
There was history behind that expression.
Rassilon spread his hands while the projection expanded around the battlefield.
"I am your master and the master of all Time Lords. I can do whatever I like. I can crush you, or I can raise you up. Return to Gallifrey, accept the gifts of the High Council, and you will walk at my side clad in godhood. You can become anything you desire."
The younger Engineer would have expected surprise from her future self. Maybe temptation.Possibly another sarcastic answer. Future Engineer simply scoffed.
It wasn't even an impressive scoff. It sounded tired. Almost insulted that Rassilon thought the offer required serious consideration.
Then something inside Future Engineer unfolded again. The younger Engineer felt the memory shake around her.
Future Engineer's multidimensional form expanded far beyond the body standing on the platform. Several overlapping versions of her became visible inside the temporal storm, some humanoid and others impossible for the younger Engineer's brain to properly interpret.
When the future Engineer spoke again, she didn't use her normal voice. Her true voice came through.
The sound traveled through the city without needing speakers. It passed through the Cyber network, through the Gallifreyan communication systems, and somehow through the dimensional structure surrounding the battlefield itself.
The younger Engineer felt the words inside her bones despite only witnessing a memory.
"You betrayed us! Your descendants and your decisions led us here to die because of your mistakes, and there is no forgiveness remaining for that."
Rassilon's expression changed. Future Engineer continued before he could answer.
"I am the War General of Gallifreyan children, ancient of rites and war dog of the Lady of Chaos. I am the proud servant of Omega, the First Time Lord, beloved by all who remember what Gallifrey was supposed to become."
Her multidimensional shape spread further across the storm. The Cybermen below had stopped advancing. Even the High Council remained silent.
Future Engineer looked directly at Rassilon. "I reject you now and always!"
The final words struck through every active communication network across Kastoria. Several High Council systems immediately failed.
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