Fandom The Diplomacy of Relativity

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

At the center of a black hole, both time and gravity are infinite forces

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Prologue: Star of Anubis

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Ancient Egypt - 2642 B.C.

There was a new star in the sky this night.

On any other night, the man who noted it as he laid on his back in the sand would have been astounded. He was Henenu, astrologist to a local viceroy, and what a new light in the heavens could signify for his patron would certainly take his thoughts by storm. Yet this was not any other night. His breathing was heavy, and the cold sand was poultice and comfort to the ragged spear wound on his leg. All the star was was a reminder that tonight felt very wrong from the start, and he wanted it to end. But he could lie here no longer. He had to move. If he was found, then-

“HENANU!”

The moment he heard his own name carry across the sands, he let out a groan as the tension left his shoulders along with any hope of survival. He tilted his head up to see the man striding purposefully over the final dune between him and his prey, and Henanu let his head fall back as he gave into despair. “DID YOU THINK YOU COULD GET AWAY AFTER WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?! MY DAUGHTER IS SOILED NOW! SHE WAS TO UNITE MY FAMILY WITH ERTU’S!”

The ranting continued as his death approached, but Henanu drowned it out as he looked up to the sky once more. What an ill portent this star must have been. He should have checked the skies before he left for his love; a new light it may have been, but it was an evil one now that he studied it closer. Even against the depths of black that made up the tapestry of night, a circle of darkness could be made out around it. It was as if Anubis’ own eye looked upon him, damning him to face his judgement in the moments to come.

The star had done this to him.

Perhaps it was merely the blood loss talking, but perhaps it could undo it to him. If it was truly the omen of a god, then maybe, just maybe, it would hear his plea.

“Please” he whispered. “Help... me...”

The star did not respond.

A weak laugh puttered out of his lungs and he looked back up to the furious father with a forlorn smile. “What a poor way to die-”

A terrifying roar filled the air as a tempest of sand and wind ripped through the desert between Henanu and the father. Both of them shrieked in terror, and both of them immediately tried to flee. The one with a working leg, unsurprisingly, did so faster. Henanu tried to struggle to his feet, but the sand beneath him was starting to pull towards the middle of the tempest, as if the desert’s sand was draining out like water in a whirlpool. He stumbled and cried out in fear once more as his stomach hit the sand, and he desperately tried to claw his way in the other direction with a horizontal climb, but it was to no avail. The pull was inexorible. It was quicksand that was actively flowing against him. What terrible god was this, that answered his prayers only to kill him in return. The frustration bubbled over into one last, horrified, furious scream of defiance that did not even come close to matching the howl of this awful storm.

Until it stopped, and he was screaming into silence. The sound of his own voice surprised him, and he tried to push himself back to his feet only to slip backwards on something smooth beneath it. It was not soft sand that greet him, and there was a heavy thunk as his butt hit. He winced , but as he slowly opened his eyes the pain gave way to awe. It was not mere rock that he had fallen on, revealed by the displaced sand.

It was glass.

A perfect half circle of glass in the desert sand. A bowl that he’d fallen into. The half-hearted noise he made wasn’t anything close to words, but it conveyed his wonder and terror just as well as any syllables. It seemed the black star was not so bad an omen as he thought. He could not wait to show its power off to his lord, and after a few slips and stumbles he managed to haul himself out of the wonder of glass and hobble off into the dark.

The next night, the star was gone.

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London - Present day


Tammy Delend was not having a good day. It had started when she woke up an hour late for work because her apartment complex had lost power. There were twenty two flights of stairs after that. Then sixteen blocks of walking, because whatever had knocked out the power had tanked the underground as well, and a convenience store part timer couldn’t afford a cab with the pocket money she carried. It was almost enough to make her stay home by that point, but she couldn’t reach her work on her cell either, and that meager paycheck was still better than being fired. So she grit her teeth and started her commute. When she reached the store, the bad day showed no signs of slowing down.

Half the store front was missing.

She saw it from a few blocks away, yet that didn’t stop her from breaking out into a jog towards it. Her paycheck may have been questionable in her future, but human curiosity was an indomitable thing. She slowed to a halt before she broke through the yellow tape that surrounded the site, and stared with both dread and fascination as men in hazmat suits slowly stepped through the debris and broken bottles.

“Its a perfect circle…”

“What? Oh, shit Ted, you scared me. What the hell happened!?”

Ted, propreitor of this store turned wreckage, Tammy’s boss, and usual asshole, couldn’t find it in himself to snap back as he stared at the remains of his livelihood from where he’d walked up behind her. “I… I dunno. Some old lady got her purse snatched outside, she yelled, and all of a sudden…” He gestured vaguely at the building. “But lookit. The sides. Its like… a big, quarter of a ball just smushed it all. Or sliced it.”

“Balls don’t slice, Ted”

“Well, yea, but…” Once more, all he could do was point.

“...So… any chance I could still… I dunno. Do you need your house cleaned?”

“Eff off, Tammy.”

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Sixteen blocks and twenty one flights of stairs later, Tammy’s bad day continued. Her cell service had returned, and some quick searches of the net revealed some disturbing news. The power was out due to what was being considered a terrorist action at the power plant. Some sort of new bomb was the thought, with a strange blast pattern. The description sounded eerily like what was left of Ted’s store, but as much of a dick as he tended to be, Tammy couldn’t see him drawing the ire of some… evil spy… terrorist...thing. Whatever this was. She opened her door, and yelled in shock as the building shook. “What the fu- Skittles!” She tried to pull the door shut, but the ball of orange fur that bolted out the it was faster. She groaned and turned to sprint after it down the stairs. “Skittles! Skittles you get back here right now-”

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Thus did the bad day reach its climax; Tammy standing under a tree, with sirens in the distance staring forlornly up at her cat in the highest branch. The news stories had only gotten worse as she searched for her pet. Terrorist action was being ruled out; more and more of the strange explosions were being reported, not only in london, but across the entire continents of Europe and Africa. No one knew what they were, only that they were dangerous, incredibly so. They left nothing in their wake, and they struck seemingly without warning. Before her cell service cut out again, repeated messages to stay indoors and underground had inundated her phone. But she couldn’t just leave Skittles. She loved him. He was all that got her through the day, most days. He was a good kitty, he’d just been scared.

And now, when the world was going crazy, he was stuck in a tree. One she’d tried to climb three times now and failed. She could hear him meowing up there. Terrified, big eyes staring down at her, just begging for help, and she couldn’t do anything.

*Sniffle*

This may have been a bad day, but Tammy did her best to play tough, and these tears had been building up over what had honestly been a bad year. She just wanted her friend back. She wanted him safe. But there was no phone, and no emergency crew was going to help her get her cat when so many other strange things were happening.

“..c-can’t someone help me?” She asked, to no one at all.

 

[Johnoclock]

‘According to the first Law of Time,
as recounted by the ancient teachings of Rassilon the Redeemer,
complex interactions between entities of past, present and future,
to such an extent where the causality of these events might be threatened,
and the temporal fabric knitting them together undone,
are forbidden without exception or compromise’

There were those on Gallifrey for whom this tenet was scripture.
There were some for whom it was an obstacle to be overcome, thrown away in the pursuit of power.
And there was one for whom it held weight, but never more than the weight held by a single act of kindness.

~~~​

Ancient Egypt - 2642 B.C.

There were a worrying number of lifeforms in the universe who assumed time was a linear progression from cause to effect, one woolly turtleneck jumper being perpetually unravelled by a single pulled thread. As with most assertations made by sentients with unremarkable cognitive functionality, this was, of course, completely wrong. Time was the inner workings of a clock where every event from the beginning of the universe to its sputtering end was a gear, constantly turning within the confines of the device, occurring all at once all across the breadth of history, influencing one another and turning other gears in the vicinity in a never-ending framework that spiralled outward. In simple terms, everything that had ever happened, and ever would, was happening, all at once, over and over again. Forever. Events occurred in sequences, and the route plotted through them by cause and effect could be plotted by those with access to the technology and knowledge required to do so, but in the eyes of the Time Vortex all was irrefutably one.

Within the vessels of the Time Vortex, on an infinitely immeasurable number of nights dating back to the birth of the universe when the forces of time first started to move, the astrologist called Henanu had left following his bewildering encounter, had gone back to face his viceroy and the ramifications of his romantic endeavors and then probably died of infection before he was thirty because it was ancient Egypt.

That was, until, the night he hadn't.

"'Scuse me! Pardon me. Could I just have your attention? Won't be a minute! You've nowhere important to be anyway, you're an astrologist before you lot figured out the planet wasn't flat."

Before he could hobble very far on his injured leg, what would have probably been a stupifying sight on a normal evening but appeared tame next to the harrowing experience he'd just had came to pass as a man much older than men had a habit of living to in this time, dressed in bizarre, form-fitting robes no Egyptian hand had ever tailored, came hurtling out of the gloom in a briskly directed walk. A hand seized Henanu's shoulder, and the narrow, severe face that flashed all its upper teeth at him in what was intended to be a reassuring smile was probably anything but.

"D'you suppose I could get your statement on something?"

~~~​

London - Present Day

“..c-can’t someone help me?” She asked, to no one at all.

*HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*

No one at all, as it turned out for the young woman, happened to look alarmingly like a figure in eyesore-yellow hazmat gear that quite suddenly stepped into view from around the tree, the sharp hiss of oxygen escaping the air tank as a gloved hand twisted one of its valves all there was to warn of the imminent and abrupt arrival. The figure stopped in their tracks as soon as they registered either Tammy's presence or emotional state, but which it was would remain ambiguous behind the obfuscating visor of the suit as they glanced from her to the distressed meowing emanating from the peak of the tree and back a few times.

The figure promptly turned back to face the shopkeeper fully, thumbed over their shoulder at the tree branch, and exclaimed something that was vaguely identifiable as a question from the tone but was otherwise completely inaudible underneath the helmet.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

The Egyptians were not completely unaware of the realms of science. Medicine and engineering discoveries would be made in these lands that would form the basis of those sciences for millenia. That, of course, did not change the fact that they believed wholeheartedly in the gods above and below. Henanu's eyes slowly turned towards the hand on his shoulder, before they coasted up to the man who had him in his grip. No.... not a man... The strange dress, the strange skin color, the dress... it had to be...

"...T-the god of the dark star"

Needless to say, any statement wanted, was given.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

​

No one at all, as it turned out for the young woman, happened to look alarmingly like a figure in eyesore-yellow hazmat gear that quite suddenly stepped into view from around the tree, the sharp hiss of oxygen escaping the air tank as a gloved hand twisted one of its valves all there was to warn of the imminent and abrupt arrival. The figure stopped in their tracks as soon as they registered either Tammy's presence or emotional state, but which it was would remain ambiguous behind the obfuscating visor of the suit as they glanced from her to the distressed meowing emanating from the peak of the tree and back a few times.

The figure promptly turned back to face the shopkeeper fully, thumbed over their shoulder at the tree branch, and exclaimed something that was vaguely identifiable as a question from the tone but was otherwise completely inaudible underneath the helmet.

Tammy sucked in a breath with a wide eyed jolt as the person stepped around from behind the tree. She'd spent the last five minutes trying to climb the stupid thing. How had she not seen them? Christ, had they seen her making an idiot of herself?

A meow from the top of the tree snapped her out of her surprise, and her eyes flicked upwards before she made eye/visor contact and gave a quick nod. "y-yes, yes, that's my cat. are you with the government? Do you guys have a truck? One of those cherry pickers? Can you get him down?"

 

[Johnoclock]

Tammy sucked in a breath with a wide eyed jolt as the person stepped around from behind the tree. She'd spent the last five minutes trying to climb the stupid thing. How had she not seen them? Christ, had they seen her making an idiot of herself?

A meow from the top of the tree snapped her out of her surprise, and her eyes flicked upwards before she made eye/visor contact and gave a quick nod. "y-yes, yes, that's my cat. are you with the government? Do you guys have a truck? One of those cherry pickers? Can you get him down?"

The figure listened in silence while angling the occasional tunnel-viewed glance up at the tree, absently swiping a loose bramble off their shoulder without much indication whether they were even listening to the girl’s plight. Before the silence stretched too long, both gloves hands came up to grasp either rim of the suit helmet and lift with a rush of decompressing air.

“No I’m not, no I don’t, wouldn’t be caught dead in one, yeah I can. In that order.”

The features the expressionless visor lifted away to reveal were striking, in their way. A prominent browline, nose, and set of ears came together in a way that managed to be both rugged and jovial, the latter more owed to the quite frankly goofy smirk emblazoned across the man’s face than anything.

“Though what I actually said was, ‘have you considered he might be up there ‘cause he wants to be?’ Yes, I’m telling her right now!” The pitch of his voice raised to an indignant high as he directed another glance towards the upper branches, eyebrows momentarily creasing in bemusement.

“You bunch, always thinking your pets’re in need of saving. These are evolutionarily developed creatures, you know, and much better at getting themselves outta a bind than the lot of you. Cats getting themselves stuck up a tree, now there’s a metaphor for the human race if I ever heard one!”

He folded his arms and stooped over slightly to give a chummy laugh, as deep and well-projected in timbre as the Northern twang of his voice.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

The figure listened in silence while angling the occasional tunnel-viewed glance up at the tree, absently swiping a loose bramble off their shoulder without much indication whether they were even listening to the girl’s plight. Before the silence stretched too long, both gloves hands came up to grasp either rim of the suit helmet and lift with a rush of decompressing air.

“No I’m not, no I don’t, wouldn’t be caught dead in one, yeah I can. In that order.”

The features the expressionless visor lifted away to reveal were striking, in their way. A prominent browline, nose, and set of ears came together in a way that managed to be both rugged and jovial, the latter more owed to the quite frankly goofy smirk emblazoned across the man’s face than anything.

“Though what I actually said was, ‘have you considered he might be up there ‘cause he wants to be?’ Yes, I’m telling her right now!” The pitch of his voice raised to an indignant high as he directed another glance towards the upper branches, eyebrows momentarily creasing in bemusement.

“You bunch, always thinking your pets’re in need of saving. These are evolutionarily developed creatures, you know, and much better at getting themselves outta a bind than the lot of you. Cats getting themselves stuck up a tree, now there’s a metaphor for the human race if I ever heard one!”

He folded his arms and stooped over slightly to give a chummy laugh, as deep and well-projected in timbre as the Northern twang of his voice.

"...wh... what are you even on about? The world's going crazy, I don't actually care if skittles wants to be in the stupid tree, we need to get somewhere safe!" she argued with an indignant frown, before she realized that whoever this was walked around in a hazmat suit and thought he could talk to cats, and she let out a frustrated groan as she clasped the top of her head and looked up to the sky with eyes closed. "I ask for help and this is what I ge-"

A grinding howl suddenly sparked through the air, and the tree that had caused Tammy so much woe had an indordinate amount of revenge delivered upon it as a whole section of trunk , grass, and dirt disappeared in a black mass that expanded and shrunk in just a moment's time. The woman screamed and jumped backwards in shock, and stared at what was left of the trunk while it slowly started to list to the side with a slow, groaning crack and creak of wood under far too much weight. "W-what the hell was that-. ..oh no, oh no oh no, skittles, Skittles!" she cried in secondhand fear, as she started to jog in the direction the tree was starting to tilt.

 

[Johnoclock]

"...wh... what are you even on about? The world's going crazy, I don't actually care if skittles wants to be in the stupid tree, we need to get somewhere safe!" she argued with an indignant frown, before she realized that whoever this was walked around in a hazmat suit and thought he could talk to cats, and she let out a frustrated groan as she clasped the top of her head and looked up to the sky with eyes closed. "I ask for help and this is what I ge-"

A grinding howl suddenly sparked through the air, and the tree that had caused Tammy so much woe had an indordinate amount of revenge delivered upon it as a whole section of trunk , grass, and dirt disappeared in a black mass that expanded and shrunk in just a moment's time. The woman screamed and jumped backwards in shock, and stared at what was left of the trunk while it slowly started to list to the side with a slow, groaning crack and creak of wood under far too much weight. "W-what the hell was that-. ..oh no, oh no oh no, skittles, Skittles!" she cried in secondhand fear, as she started to jog in the direction the tree was starting to tilt.

"Get back!"

The kooky, jovial mirth of the stranger was supplanted by an air of brusque authority in an instant as his hand made to snatch Tammy's shoulder and drag her back, not harshly enough to be considered rough but none too gently either. The simultaneous action of taking two broad paces forward brought him to the base of the tree as it started teetering, brow furrowed and eyes alert while they scanned the newfound absence of matter where a whole cluster of roots, soil and wood should've been. Tilting his head back with that fixed expression halfway between dismay and perplexment, he nonetheless kept talking as habitually as if the whole dynamic of the conversation hadn't just changed.

"That's exactly like I was saying! What were you gonna do, plant the tree again? Self-preservational skills of a monkey mucking about with electrical wires, that's you. 'Least it's the brave sort of stupid, though I will point out again that Skittles has millions' of years worth of evolutionary danger avoidance instincts to keep him going, so you can stop your moaning 'cause the most he needs right now is a little bit of encouragement-!"

The man's chatty flow of dialogue had been concomitant to the removal of one of his suit's gloves, and hardly a split instant before the tree's center of gravity overbalanced completely and the entire pillar started to fall he touched both fingers to the trunk with a pointedly cheeky simper. For such a seemingly small gesture, the effect it produced was of the marked sort as Skittles, having been coiled in uncertainty atop his branch while the tree lurched beneath him, suddenly sprang and flew from it with the sort of grace only a cat could muster. Then, as things falling from substantial heights were prone to do, he landed.

Right in the Doctor's arms. Without waiting, he turned and deposited the squirming bundle of fur in Tammy's arms like it was a blistering hot tray fresh from the oven, still smirking away cheerily.

"Luckily, I'm here and a teeny bit psychic. Just gave him the mental jolt he needed to get his act together and hop down. Right, now the two of you need to get as far away from here as you can. Pop on home, make yourselves a cuppa and stick the telly on. And last of all, most important part, forget you ever met me. Bye!"

With one last grin (albeit one with a tangible sense of dismissal attached to it), he quirked his eyebrows and turned away to inspect the site of the gravity surge, retrieving some manner of small, futuristic instrument from his belt that glowed blue from the tip and whirred when he pressed its switch, directing it carefully around the area the black mass had appeared.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Get back!"

The kooky, jovial mirth of the stranger was supplanted by an air of brusque authority in an instant as his hand made to snatch Tammy's shoulder and drag her back, not harshly enough to be considered rough but none too gently either. The simultaneous action of taking two broad paces forward brought him to the base of the tree as it started teetering, brow furrowed and eyes alert while they scanned the newfound absence of matter where a whole cluster of roots, soil and wood should've been. Tilting his head back with that fixed expression halfway between dismay and perplexment, he nonetheless kept talking as habitually as if the whole dynamic of the conversation hadn't just changed.

"That's exactly like I was saying! What were you gonna do, plant the tree again? Self-preservational skills of a monkey mucking about with electrical wires, that's you. 'Least it's the brave sort of stupid, though I will point out again that Skittles has millions' of years worth of evolutionary danger avoidance instincts to keep him going, so you can stop your moaning 'cause the most he needs right now is a little bit of encouragement-!"

The man's chatty flow of dialogue had been concomitant to the removal of one of his suit's gloves, and hardly a split instant before the tree's center of gravity overbalanced completely and the entire pillar started to fall he touched both fingers to the trunk with a pointedly cheeky simper. For such a seemingly small gesture, the effect it produced was of the marked sort as Skittles, having been coiled in uncertainty atop his branch while the tree lurched beneath him, suddenly sprang and flew from it with the sort of grace only a cat could muster. Then, as things falling from substantial heights were prone to do, he landed.

Right in the Doctor's arms. Without waiting, he turned and deposited the squirming bundle of fur in Tammy's arms like it was a blistering hot tray fresh from the oven, still smirking away cheerily.

"Luckily, I'm here and a teeny bit psychic. Just gave him the mental jolt he needed to get his act together and hop down. Right, now the two of you need to get as far away from here as you can. Pop on home, make yourselves a cuppa and stick the telly on. And last of all, most important part, forget you ever met me. Bye!"

With one last grin (albeit one with a tangible sense of dismissal attached to it), he quirked his eyebrows and turned away to inspect the site of the gravity surge, retrieving some manner of small, futuristic instrument from his belt that glowed blue from the tip and whirred when he pressed its switch, directing it carefully around the area the black mass had appeared.

"What-no, let go of me-!" Tammy was too surprised by being yanked back to fight back, but she let out a horrified yelp as Skittles suddenly bounded into the air and clasped her hands to her mouth as she watched gravity do one more terrible thing to her today-

"...ooooh...." She let out a full bodied sigh and slumped her shoulders as relief washed over her like the tide. she accepted the cat with a grateful smile and a mumbled "Thank you. But, what was that? That wasn't normal, right?" She gasped.

"Was it magic??? Issit some sort of mystic catastrophe where the world hidden in plain sight is spilling over into ours?! You said you were psychic right?" She leaned in closer. "Is Hogwarts real-?" A jingle started to sound from her pocket, and she blinked herself out of her slow descent into conspiracy and fumbled for her phone while trying not to drop her cat. "H-hello? Who is this?"

The remains of the tree and ground around the gravity surge looked like someone scooped a perfectly circular section out of existence. You could draw a curve through the remains of the trunk that hadn't snapped straight through the massive divot in the ground. whatever happened hadn't left much of a trace apart from the obvious behind, but the Doctor's search at least revealed where all the wood and dirt had gone; an absolutely miniscule hole in the ground that went half a mile deep and was still slowly growing in length.

"...What? No I- Who are you? Yes, I've seen it."