WRAITHS OF THE RIPPER
Chapter Thirteen Eleven led them back to the med bay after taking the TARDIS into the vortex. Rose stayed with Jack, trying to keep him calm since he was still casting wary looks at the Doctors. Eleven walked over to a Formica counter with an iron countertop and opened a drawer. He rummaged around in it for a moment before he pulled out a small bottle of white pills. He unscrewed the top, shook two pills out onto his palm and put them on the counter. He put the bottle back in the drawer, filled a plastic cup with water from a tap on the next counter and called Jack over. Jack staggered over while Rose supported him and stared at the pills in the Doctor's outstretched palm while he held it and the glass of water out to him. "It's not poisoned, Jack, it'll sober you up, just take it," Eleven said when Jack gave him a wary look. Jack sighed, took the pills and cup and downed the pills while Eleven nodded and thanked him for cooperating. "Now, a briefing," he said, walking away while Jack turned with Rose and they leaned against the counter. "Since some of you aren't aware that that hell you call reality isn't really reality, we'll bring you up to speed on what's happening and what we're going to do to sort this out. Now, has anyone here seen Back to the Future Part Two before?" Everyone who hadn't been affected by the alternate reality raised their hand. "Okay, so films are not a priority in Ripper ravaged London," Eleven said. "But I will go ahead and do what Doc Brown did in the film. Illustrate the point with a white board." He asked the TARDIS to produce one for him along with a black marker and Donna, Rani and Sarah Jane stepped back in shock when there was a flash and a white board and marker appeared behind him. Eleven ignored their shocked faces as he walked to the white board and grabbed the marker from the tray under it. He took the lid off and drew a black line on the white board. "Now, I don't really believe this but…whatever. If it helps illustrate the point to you lot," he said, turning to them. "Now…this line represents time. I personally don't believe time is a straight line but as I said, whatever gets the point across to all of you. Anyway, somewhere along this timeline at some point in the past, the timeline skewed into this tangent," he said, drawing a line down from an angle from his first line and then drawing another straight line. "Creating an alternate reality for most of humanity. Alternate reality for me, my family, the tenth Doctor and Rose and John but reality for everyone else. Our mission is to try to go back far enough to get behind this tangent and stop the alternate timeline from occurring. Now…Sarah…step up here for a moment." Sarah Jane walked to the Doctor. "I suspect that since there seems to be a cult of the Ripper now that it all starts with him. Sarah, answer me this. How many official victims did the Ripper have, not speculation mind but actually provable Ripper murders." "Um…hundreds," Sarah Jane said. "Really? Because in my reality, there were five and then the Ripper stopped," Eleven said. "Five?" Sarah Jane said in disbelief. "Yes. Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly," he said. "Those are the ones that people are sure the Ripper killed." "That was the start of it but he kept on going after killing them," Sarah Jane said. "And then the Wraiths came and helped him and then the Jacksprites eventually took over." Eleven beckoned to Rani. "Come here, young lady," he said when Rani hesitated. Rani moved carefully since she was still wearing finger knives. Eleven rolled his eyes. "Take those filthy things off first and put them in the sink," he said to her. "You're not cutting anyone with those and giving them an infection." Rani walked to the sink while everyone watched and peeled the leather bands that held the scalpel blades off her fingers. Each one clattered as it landed in the stainless steel sink. When she was finished, she turned and the Doctor beckoned to her again. "Okay, I'm not here to lecture you since I don't think your heart was fully in this Jacksprite rubbish anyway. I just want to know what led you to join them and what was so attractive about it. Why the Ripper? Why emulate a butcher of women in the first place?" "Luke and Clyde convinced me to join," Rani said. "Okay, but why join?" Eleven said. "Because there's not much else," Rani said. "There's no real jobs, everything is rationed, everything is controlled, no real hope. My parents had given up. We were barricaded into the house while the Jacksprites terrorized everyone. In the end, Luke and Clyde and I decided it was better to join them and be able to live well…well, live better than we were living anyway. Jacksprites are pretty much invincible at the moment. Everyone's scared of them, even the police and the military. We lived in abandoned houses like the one your friend lived in and we usually had more food than anyone else. That was the biggest attraction for me, I wasn't starving anymore. But I never killed anyone, I swear." "But these Wraiths that killed your friends," Ten said, coming up beside Eleven. "They're also allied with the Ripper so why kill people who are supposedly kindred spirits?" "Because the Wraiths aren't like us," Rani said. "Even the Jacksprites fear them. They kill at random and as far as anyone can tell, nothing can stop them. They don't seem human." "According to the stories, they're spirits of pure evil," Donna said. "There's been plenty of ghost stories about them but she's right, they're supposedly not human." "But it all seems to begin and end with Jack the Ripper," Eleven said. "Which is why I think we should start our search just before he committed his first murder. Somewhere along the timeline, a murderer became a godlike figure that's continued to terrorize London past the nineteenth century. "And even if the Ripper is dead by the twenty first centuries, his disciples and wraiths are carrying on his legacy. He's gained more power than he ever had in our reality. And now the UK is a mess because of him." "And the UK is now part of America," Amy said. "And of course, it's not just England that's affected, it's the whole bloody island because of course, some Yanks just lump all the countries together into one big landmass. By the way, does that include Ireland?" she asked Sarah Jane. "Northern Island is a part of it. The other part of Ireland didn't want to join the US and now there's a guerilla war raging between Ireland and Northern Ireland." "Well, of course there is," Amy said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. "Some things never change, it seems." "So if we fix the timeline, the UK becomes the UK again and not UK, the US state?" Jack said. "Yes," Ten said. "And hopefully, the other Doctors will be restored and you and Rose will go back to traveling with the ninth Doctor without worrying about him going berserk and trying to slaughter you." "Will I become mortal again then?" Jack said. "Um…" Ten and Rose shared a look and Ten shrugged, preferring not to answer that. "Now," Eleven said, sharing his unease and quickly changing the subject. "For those of you who don't know, me and my colleague here are going to undergo a few changes and all of you will be wearing disguises so the second part of my briefing is filling you in on our plan once we reach Victorian London."
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