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Fandomweekly Challenge 202 - From bad to worse
Title: From bad to worse
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M. Language.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 202 - Catastrophe at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: Torchwood’s day seems to be going from bad to worse.
‘We can take them.’ Jack's famous last words. Of course, that had been after his previous set of famous last words which had been “It's just some little cult. Probably not even anything to do with us.”
Yeah, just some little cult of humans brainwashed by alien invaders and their not so human army reinforcements now wreaking havoc across the city. Because that's what you did if you were an alien invasionary force short a few numbers, wasn't it? Just recruit the locals to be cannon fodder. Wasn't the first time and definitely wouldn’t be the last either, in all likelihood.
Jack surged forward and lasted all of ten seconds before a barrage of laser fire cut him down dead. Aliens one, Torchwood nil. Not the best start to their campaign.
‘Ianto, don't you dare!’ Gwen warned.
He rolled his eyes at her. ‘I'm not stupid.’ He would rush to be at Jack's side in a heartbeat, but not at the expense of having exactly the same thing happen to him. Bad enough Jack was dead. He'd heal eventually, though from the look of things that was going to take some considerable time. Severed body parts usually did.
‘Okay,’ Gwen said, assessing their updated situation. ‘What do we do?’
‘I dunno.’
‘That's not a plan!’
‘I'm thinking!’ he shouted back at her. Why was it his job to come up with Plan B? Besides, since when did Plans A through F ever work?
‘I've got the plasma cannon,’ Gwen said, hefting the thing onto her shoulder. ‘I'm taking out as many of these bastarding aliens as I can whilst you think up a way to stop them.’ She rushed off before he could tell her that was a terrible plan. God, she was as bad as Jack. No, worse, he decided. Jack at least knew if he got blown to bits he'd still survive it. Not Gwen sodding Cooper, one-woman Torchwood wrecking ball. Bloody hell.
Jack… He winced as he cast a look over to where Jack's broken body lay in several pieces, most notable the foot and a half gap between his upper and lower torso, innards not even spilling out onto the road, so clean was the laser that split him, cauterising the flesh as it sawed him in half where he stood. Dead eyes stared up towards the sky, taking in very little of what was going on. Bloody lucky too, because right now Earth was losing this battle by an embarrassingly wide margin..
Ianto swallowed down the lump in the back of his throat. No time to mourn Jack now. No time to drag him out of the middle of a battlefield; no time to try and give him some dignity as he healed, out of view of everyone. Only time to stop things from getting worse.
He stood by helplessly as a round of heavy laser fire cut through the City Hall, slicing the Romanesque architecture frontage, crumbling stone and plaster down across the main roadway, crushing several innocent civilians in the process. He cringed. Torchwood had only just finished paying off the loan that had been taken out to fund rebuilding the façade from the last time aliens had destroyed it!
‘Honestly, could anything else possibly go wrong?’ Ianto asked aloud, even though there was no one there to answer him. Plus, the question was largely rhetorical. Of course something else could go wrong. It simply wouldn't be a normal day at the office if everything didn't go completely tits up. Still, he was alive, and that was something. Whilst he was alive, and hopefully Gwen too, there was still a chance they might be able to do something. If not stop the carnage then at least lessen it a little bit.
He looked around the scene trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. Where did you even start? Then his eyes latched on to something that didn't make sense. The alien platoon that was currently spread up and down the main drag were delighting in destroying everything in sight, with little resistance from police who were mostly just hiding behind cars or running away. Yet there was a whole group of a half dozen brainwashed citizens, freshly armed with laser technology, all surrounding one nondescript white panel van, not trying to blow it up like everything else, but… defending it? What could be so important about a panel van?
Oh, stupid! He smacked his forehead as it became completely obvious. Power source! Why hadn't he seen it earlier? That's how they were converting humans into soldiers, and probably also what was providing the juice for their weapons. Why else protect it?
He reached into the SUV’s boot and plucked out a heavy gun, throwing the strap over his head and pulling it to his chest. A stun gun that worked like an automatic machine gun. Massive fire-power, no casualties. Perfect for your occasional conscientious objector to killing, AKA, him. He snapped back the safety trigger and gripped it hard, grimacing as he stormed toward the protective contingent. He didn't make it very far before something hit him in the leg, taking him down, knees splashing into a puddle of the morning's earlier rain and scraping a large, irreparable hole in his suit trousers.
‘F… uck…!’ He screamed out a few more obscenities as the pain caught up with his brain. He reached down and felt blood where the laser had gone all the way through his calf leaving a bloody hole. One of the brainwashed army, having spotted him, had fired the first shot.
He grimaced and pointed the gun, hobbling forward. ‘Right, you've messed with the wrong city today.’ They hadn't yet seen what Ianto could do when he was really mad. Once they killed Jack, put a massive dent in his finely crafted Torchwood budget and shot a hole in his leg, things got a whole lot more personal. They were going to wish they'd never been born.
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M. Language.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 202 - Catastrophe at
fandomweeklySummary: Torchwood’s day seems to be going from bad to worse.
‘We can take them.’ Jack's famous last words. Of course, that had been after his previous set of famous last words which had been “It's just some little cult. Probably not even anything to do with us.”
Yeah, just some little cult of humans brainwashed by alien invaders and their not so human army reinforcements now wreaking havoc across the city. Because that's what you did if you were an alien invasionary force short a few numbers, wasn't it? Just recruit the locals to be cannon fodder. Wasn't the first time and definitely wouldn’t be the last either, in all likelihood.
Jack surged forward and lasted all of ten seconds before a barrage of laser fire cut him down dead. Aliens one, Torchwood nil. Not the best start to their campaign.
‘Ianto, don't you dare!’ Gwen warned.
He rolled his eyes at her. ‘I'm not stupid.’ He would rush to be at Jack's side in a heartbeat, but not at the expense of having exactly the same thing happen to him. Bad enough Jack was dead. He'd heal eventually, though from the look of things that was going to take some considerable time. Severed body parts usually did.
‘Okay,’ Gwen said, assessing their updated situation. ‘What do we do?’
‘I dunno.’
‘That's not a plan!’
‘I'm thinking!’ he shouted back at her. Why was it his job to come up with Plan B? Besides, since when did Plans A through F ever work?
‘I've got the plasma cannon,’ Gwen said, hefting the thing onto her shoulder. ‘I'm taking out as many of these bastarding aliens as I can whilst you think up a way to stop them.’ She rushed off before he could tell her that was a terrible plan. God, she was as bad as Jack. No, worse, he decided. Jack at least knew if he got blown to bits he'd still survive it. Not Gwen sodding Cooper, one-woman Torchwood wrecking ball. Bloody hell.
Jack… He winced as he cast a look over to where Jack's broken body lay in several pieces, most notable the foot and a half gap between his upper and lower torso, innards not even spilling out onto the road, so clean was the laser that split him, cauterising the flesh as it sawed him in half where he stood. Dead eyes stared up towards the sky, taking in very little of what was going on. Bloody lucky too, because right now Earth was losing this battle by an embarrassingly wide margin..
Ianto swallowed down the lump in the back of his throat. No time to mourn Jack now. No time to drag him out of the middle of a battlefield; no time to try and give him some dignity as he healed, out of view of everyone. Only time to stop things from getting worse.
He stood by helplessly as a round of heavy laser fire cut through the City Hall, slicing the Romanesque architecture frontage, crumbling stone and plaster down across the main roadway, crushing several innocent civilians in the process. He cringed. Torchwood had only just finished paying off the loan that had been taken out to fund rebuilding the façade from the last time aliens had destroyed it!
‘Honestly, could anything else possibly go wrong?’ Ianto asked aloud, even though there was no one there to answer him. Plus, the question was largely rhetorical. Of course something else could go wrong. It simply wouldn't be a normal day at the office if everything didn't go completely tits up. Still, he was alive, and that was something. Whilst he was alive, and hopefully Gwen too, there was still a chance they might be able to do something. If not stop the carnage then at least lessen it a little bit.
He looked around the scene trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. Where did you even start? Then his eyes latched on to something that didn't make sense. The alien platoon that was currently spread up and down the main drag were delighting in destroying everything in sight, with little resistance from police who were mostly just hiding behind cars or running away. Yet there was a whole group of a half dozen brainwashed citizens, freshly armed with laser technology, all surrounding one nondescript white panel van, not trying to blow it up like everything else, but… defending it? What could be so important about a panel van?
Oh, stupid! He smacked his forehead as it became completely obvious. Power source! Why hadn't he seen it earlier? That's how they were converting humans into soldiers, and probably also what was providing the juice for their weapons. Why else protect it?
He reached into the SUV’s boot and plucked out a heavy gun, throwing the strap over his head and pulling it to his chest. A stun gun that worked like an automatic machine gun. Massive fire-power, no casualties. Perfect for your occasional conscientious objector to killing, AKA, him. He snapped back the safety trigger and gripped it hard, grimacing as he stormed toward the protective contingent. He didn't make it very far before something hit him in the leg, taking him down, knees splashing into a puddle of the morning's earlier rain and scraping a large, irreparable hole in his suit trousers.
‘F… uck…!’ He screamed out a few more obscenities as the pain caught up with his brain. He reached down and felt blood where the laser had gone all the way through his calf leaving a bloody hole. One of the brainwashed army, having spotted him, had fired the first shot.
He grimaced and pointed the gun, hobbling forward. ‘Right, you've messed with the wrong city today.’ They hadn't yet seen what Ianto could do when he was really mad. Once they killed Jack, put a massive dent in his finely crafted Torchwood budget and shot a hole in his leg, things got a whole lot more personal. They were going to wish they'd never been born.