As the Doctor regenerated into their tenth incarnation (or to Luke and us as David Tennant) and Christmas eve soon came to the people of Earth, plans were made in secret that delved into future events. Even as beings arrived to scout out the source of Time Lord regenerative energy, Luke Stryker slowly grew more proficient in his abilities with Anima. Rose and the Doctor were soon to arrive back in London in the TARDIS, yet Torchwood was also beginning their own plans.
Yet none of the natives would know that plans were being set into motion that would eternally safeguard the human race...
==[DW:NG]==
Luke always loved Christmas. It signified something much more natural than how the Christians painted it as for over a thousand years, yet the very magic of this holiday transcended realities. While it is also during this time that, in the future, the Doctor will regenerate into their newest incarnation, he knew that he did not require the energy of the Time Lord for anything.
Even his Voidship Lux had a far different fuel source that would have only seen the residual regeneration energy as inferior. Not even Michael knew why his ship saw it as inferior considering the Doctor said it themselves that the pilot fish sought him out for his energy which could "power their batteries for at least a couple of years." Michael theorized that the fuel for Lux was something that was not native to any universe Luke knew about, but was able to be produced nearly anywhere.
Breaking off from that line of thinking, Luke wandered the plaza with his parents in London. The scene before him was joyous yet busy with people doing some last-minute shopping for Christmas along with the familiar sight of robotic Santas. When both Michael and Luke noticed the robots, Luke immediately scanned both his parents then himself.
The results came quick through his System UI. Both of his parents and himself did not contain A-positive blood types. This made him thankful, but what did surprise Luke was that his blood type had a small [Disguised] tag next to it.
While he would've liked to explore more about why his blood type has this particular tag next to it, Luke knew he had to pay attention to what was happening around him. He knew that the Doctor would have arrived at Jackie Taylor's apartment complex and have trouble expressing what he needed (which was a nice cup of tea), but the main problem Luke would have is to avoid letting his parents know he was getting involved.
After all, in this life, he was only five years old. He couldn't do a lot without parental supervision.
While he observed the movements of the robots, his parents navigated across the busy plaza. They were blissfully unaware of the robots presence, which Luke attributed to some sort of psychic filter akin to what the TARDIS uses, yet that also brought up other questions in Luke's mind as to why he wasn't affected by the psychic filters and if psychic paper worked on him.
Mentally filing that away for now, he noticed that he was moving away from the robots and going towards another stall. It was only during this brief moment that both Michael and he noticed it.
Both a strange box-like symbol on the UI minimap and the tell-tale sound all Whovians love to hear the most. The wheezing-groaning of the TARDIS as it materializes into reality. Those signs were indicating to both Michael and Luke that the Doctor had arrived.
"Mark down the coordinates, brother," Luke asked Michael. "We will need the TARDIS' coordinates for when the robots come to attack."
Michael was all too happy to mark down the coordinates of where the TARDIS was landing at. He was always pleased to be called "brother" by Luke since they were basically together since he was in the Abyssal Sea. Unlike Guthix and those Luke will inevitably bring into this universe, Michael can truly call himself a brother to Luke as he knew he'd need all the help he can get.
After a quick confirmation from Michael that he got the coordinates, Luke mentally recalled the quest details for the Christmas Invasion:
====
[Canon Event: The Christmas Invasion]
With the tenth incarnation of the Doctor comes a changing of the guard. In this quest, you will need to assist the newly-regenerated Doctor in dealing with the Sycorax and setting up a reputation with the famous time-travelling Time Lord.
||1: Assist Rose Tyler with the tree attack: 0/1
||2: Be in the TARDIS when the Sycorax teleport it: 0/1
||3: Issue the challenge to the Sycorax Leader: 0/1
||4: Ensure that the Doctor loses his right hand: 0/1
||1: 1x Sonic Screwdriver (Basic)
||2: 1000x Blood Runes
||3: Steel Sword (Base)
||4: +100 Reputation (Doctor)
||5: +25 Reputation (Humanity)
====
The quest was oddly detailed just enough to drive the point home while offering enough rewards to at least get a full completion. Just the reward for a basic sonic screwdriver was enough to make Luke strive to complete the quest, but what confused him was that the quest wanted him to challenge the Sycorax leader.
"Wait a minute," Luke thought, "does this System think I can fight the Sycorax leader as a five year old?! Do I have some sort of secret Attack/Strength skill that's maxed out or something? I'm only five years old this year and I'm somehow expected to fight an experienced fighter with no training at all?"
It was very clear that Luke was not believing the System about his capabilities towards the combat challenge. He knew that Harriet Jones--the Prime Minister of Britain--was going to make Torchwood fire on the retreating Sycorax ship and kill them all after the Doctor won the planet's perpetual protection. Both Michael and Luke knew that it was a total bitch move to do, yet neither were against the Doctor deposing her from her seat of power.
It even made Luke think that, with his powers, he'd become some kind of discount Jedi. That thought lasted for only a moment before he realized he'd need to be taught how to wield a blade. As luck would have it, Guthix did manage to kill a god using a sword before ascending to godhood himself. Luke believed that Guthix could teach him the basics of wielding a sword so that he doesn't at least die from the Sycorax.
That made him certain he had only a couple of days before the morning of Christmas Day when the Doctor would win the challenge.
Now, when he noticed the events moving as they did in the episode, Luke knew it was soon time to act. He only had the rest of today, tonight, and tomorrow morning to prepare.
As the day soon turned to night, Luke returned back home with his parents. He was watching the news about Guinevere One and knew that the probe would never make it to Mars. The Sycorax were coming.
"It's almost time," Luke muttered aloud as he prepared to go out. "The Doctor is going to need help while he's still regenerating."
There, he donned on special clothing that he wove together from pure Anima. Despite being only five years old, he needed to create clothing that would protect his growing body from melee attacks. This is considering that most enemies of the Doctor either prefer laser-based or plasma-based weaponry along with scant few using actual swords or clubs directly.
These clothes he made would serve a dual purpose. To protect his growing body, he wove these strands of pure Anima together to prevent major injury from melee and ranged-based attacks along with concealing his true body in a false imitation of his previous body.
He was not a fool to believe that the Sycorax would take it easy on a child barely out of infancy when one dared to challenge them for the planet, yet Luke was not letting chance take hold. The Time Lord may be weakened slightly from his regeneration, but Luke knew better than to rely on a freshly-regenerated Time Lord to deal with a planetary threat.
Donning on the clothes, his form was concealed and, in its place, stood a young adult version of himself. He walked towards his closet and parted his hanging clothes to reveal his Voidship hidden behind them. When he sailed Lux back home, he intentionally landed in his closet and found out that the ship can adjust itself to fit in enclosed spaces. Sadly, the entrance did not appear to work in a similar way to an Immersive Portal and change the size of the being going through the doorway.
It worked just like how Twelve's TARDIS simply altered the doorway to shrink or enlarge with the given space.
With a soft click, he unlocked the door to his Voidship and entered the [Arrival Hall]. Strangely enough, being inside the Voidship automatically suspended the concealment effect of his clothes as if the very Anima itself knew that Luke didn't require the concealment within his Voidship. He quickly navigated towards the Bridge and set the coordinates that Michael collected earlier.
This time, Luke made sure to lock in the temporal set of coordinates for seven minutes before the tree attack so he can appear before Rose got back into the apartment. The coordinates were right into the apartment itself and the ship set off towards the first encounter with the Doctor with a soft whirring.
==[DW:NG]==
Luke heard the telltale sign that the tree attack was soon to happen when he arrived just by the door to his Voidship to hear Rose shouting "Get off the phone!" to her mother Jackie. He waited for a bit before he exited the ship and, just as he opened the door to his ship in what appeared to be the adjacent room, he heard Rose saying that they should go to her cousin Mo's and Jackie arguing not to as it was Christmas Eve.
"Mum..." Jackie began before she noticed the new tree, "Where'd you get that tree?"
Jackie turned around to see the tree that she unknowingly put up in the corner of the living space that was not from Rose. "That's a new tree. Where'd you get it?" Rose asked as he subtly pointed at the tree.
"I thought it was you," Jackie replied, still thinking the tree was from her daughter. When she turned back to see her daughter's face, she was slowly beginning to realize that it may not be her who sent the tree.
Rose looked confused for a moment. "How can it be me?"
Jackie replied quickly. "You went shopping, there was a ring at the door and there it was."
"No, that wasn't me," Rose rejected as they all turned back to look at the tree.
Jackie then asked the question that would set the prelude to the Sycorax invasion. "then who was it?"
Rose quickly pulled her mother towards her side as the tree lights slowly turned on by themselves, sensing something was not quite right. As the tree was fully lit up, Rose remarked in a 'what the fuck?' tone: "Oh, you are kidding me."
The tree slowly turned itself on and began to spin. As it ramped up speed, it would quickly get more and more faster until it became a literal weapon destroying the table with the presents still on it. Rose, Mickey, and Jackie were frightened by it and it was Mickey who said that they needed to go.
With the sounds of the tree attack beginning to occur, Luke exited his ship and the concealment returned in full. No longer appearing as a mere five year old child, he was now a young adult version of himself and went to help block the tree with Mickey. He heard Rose shout out how they needed to save the Doctor and knew that he needed to do enough to lead the tree towards the room where the Doctor rested.
"Who are you?!" Mickey asked Luke as the latter grabbed another chair to hold it back more.
"Someone whose here to help," Luke replied with a small grunt. He was trying to keep a literal death tree back with a chair made up of normal matter and not reinforced with Anima. "Now, let's keep this tree blocked for a bit longer."
It did not take too much longer before Jackie shouted for Mickey. Both Mickey and Luke followed after him towards the room with the Doctor in it. Whether it is from luck or relief, Jackie didn't comment on him coming too. Mickey entered the room, then Jackie, and Luke.
Amidst the chaos, it was only Luke and Michael who were calm. Michael told Luke that, just like in canon, the tree was remote controlled. It meant that one good sonic attack would destroy the tree.
While Luke and Michael were talking, Rose had quickly grabbed the Doctor's sonic screwdriver and put it into his hands. Luke also noticed this and got a good look at the tenth Doctor.
"Yep," Luke thought to himself and Michael. "It is exactly like the younger version of David Tennant. I'm glad I was sent here and not to Hogwarts because if I saw Barty Crouch Junior with this face, I'd fuck canon and gut him like a fish."
Akin to most Whovians who've watched the movies, Luke too did not think highly of Barty Junior having the face of the Tenth Doctor and would've murdered that ungrateful brat on the spot. In fact, just to screw with that potential adventure, he had a plan to completely torture Barty Junior before committing acts that would make the very devil himself shudder in fear.
"I'm sure that we have a high probability of not ever encountering Barty Crouch Junior, but I've got recommendations..." Like Luke himself, Michael too hated the son of Barty Crouch.
Then, as they talked in his mind, he noticed that the tree was coming through the wooden door and barricade. Jackie screamed as the tree broke through and was going to eliminate them, but both Rose and Luke had their plans.
"I'm gonna get killed by a Christmas tree!" Jackie screamed out in a high-pitched wail while Luke was calling forth a mere speck of Anima to blast the tree apart in case Rose couldn't wake the Doctor up with the two words that he knew would work.
Rose quickly whispered into the Doctor's left ear the words. "Help me."
Both Luke and the Doctor heard her words clearly. Just like canon, the Doctor woke up and used the sonic screwdriver on the tree to destroy it. This made Luke pull back the power he summoned forth and turn to face the Time Lord.
"Remote control," he said as he looked at the remnants of the tree. Amidst the confusion after the tree was destroyed, the Doctor continued. "But who's controlling it?"
He got up from the bed with a grunt as Jackie handed him a thick bedrobe to wear outside. As the Doctor went outside and the others followed, Luke stayed at the back of the four of them and noticed that the Doctor was still repairing himself from the violent regeneration.
His movements were only semi-fluid and various muscle groups were struggling to keep up with the repairs. Even when Luke got a good look in the Doctor's eyes, he noticed that the brain's neurons were only semi-functional at best. This meant that the Doctor was only barely aware of things going on and still required time to fully recover.
"That's them," Mickey said as the group looked down over the balcony to see three robot Santas with remote controllers in their hands. "What are they?"
"Shh," Rose admonished as the Doctor stared at them. In his right hand, he held the sonic screwdriver and raised his right hand to aim the sonic at the three robot Santas.
The three robots backed away and grouped together before being teleported away.
"They've just gone! What kind of rubbish were they?" Mickey inquired before turning to the Doctor. "I mean no offence, but they're not much cop if a sonic screwdriver's gonna scare them off."
"Pilot fish," the Doctor murmured.
"What?" Rose inquired.
"They were just pilot fish," the Doctor replied before he groaned in pain.
He then collapsed towards the wall behind him as everyone else gathered round to help him. Luke knew the Doctor needed some tea, but he had to wait for the rest to catch up.
"You woke me up too soon," the Doctor said in a pained tone as he looked at Rose. "I'm still regenerating. I'm bursting with energy."
He then exhaled a small plume of what appeared to be golden plasma, but Luke and Michael knew it was regeneration energy. They both just stood there witnessing this.
"You see? The pilot fish could smell it a million miles away. So they eliminate the defence, that's you lot, and they carry me off."
Then Luke heard the words he thought of earlier before this event happened.
"They could run their batteries off me for a couple of years!" the Doctor finished before the pain lurched him forward and both Mickey and Rose went to help him.
"Oh, my head!" the Doctor grunted out in pain. "I'm having a neural implosion. I need..."
"...You need a good cup of tea," Luke thought as he knew the words the Doctor couldn't get out.
It was even amusing for a good moment to hear Jackie try to guess what the Doctor needed and run her mouth off of things he might need before he finally worked through the pain to tell her to shut up. After her remark, the Doctor lurched violently forward again towards a pillar and started to talk about what he needed to tell them before being sent back into sleep.
Before he could say more, he found an apple in the coat pocket. Luke had a small smirk at that point of silliness because, later on, it would be a thrown sansuma that would kill the Sycorax leader in canon.
From that, the Doctor collapsed to the ground and muttered something about his brain collapsing. That was where Luke stepped in.
"Don't worry, Doctor," Luke said calmly to the struggling Doctor. "I'll help them out. Just rest for now and it will be time for that when you're ready."
He empathized the word "that" to the Doctor to stress upon him that he knew what he needed, but chose to give his body more time to recover from the regeneration energy. With that, the Doctor looked into Luke's eyes and noticed that he was different to other humans. Something in him felt primordial that was not in any other human he met.
With those comforting words, the Doctor returned to sleep.
"Now, before you ask me questions, let's get the Doctor back to bed," Luke said sternly. "It wouldn't be comfortable to lay out here in the cold."
He, along with Rose and Mickey, hoisted up the Doctor's comatose body and gently took him back into the ruined apartment. They laid him back into in the same bed he got up from and, as Rose patted his sweating forehead and Mickey set up his base of operations there, Luke stayed in the room with Rose and the Doctor.
"Those robots were just the advance," Luke translated for Rose. "They were the scouts meant to steal the Doctor's body after killing you lot. When you have scouts coming, it is usually a prelude to a bigger threat."
"So, you mean...?" Rose asked inquisitively.
"That there is something bigger coming, yes," Luke replied with a nod. "Time Lords after regeneration give off potent energy that can power entire cities for years. If other humans knew this, wouldn't it mean that he'd not be safe?"
He implied for Rose to keep the secret. She nodded.
He also saw in his UI that it was midnight on Christmas Day and that he'd have to open his presents after the Sycorax are defeated. Michael then spoke up in Luke's mind that the signal of the space probe has returned and the Sycorax will soon announce their intent to conquer the planet. He looked at the Doctor for a moment and sighed.
As Rose left to look at the news and talk to Mickey more about the pilot fish to get more context, Luke knew he was alone with the Doctor's comatose body.
"I know what you did to help her, Doctor," Luke murmured softly as he kept his voice low enough for only the doctor to pick up on. "The power of the Time Vortex in her head is a power no one can handle. I'm happy she was able to save you from the Daleks when she took the Vortex into her head, but that kind of power is the type you have to put down before it burns you. Like I told you, I'll help her out, but I have plans to help you too. Not all the time, of course."
With that, he noted in his notifications that the first objective was completed.
[Objective Completed: Assist Rose Tyler with the tree attack.]
==[DW:NG]==
Continued in: The Sycorax's Arrival.