"They're waking up. Run!" He shouted just before they started to move, Rita had luckily gave them a few extra moments to put some distance behind them. They ran through the tunnel Cybermen waking up and beginning to stomp towards them. They then came to a stop at a ladder.

"Rita go!" He shouted ordering the brunette to go first. She climbed the ladder as fast as she could and swung open the trap door climbing out. The Doctor right behind the brunette climbed up second

"Get up! Quick! Quick!" Mrs Moore shouted behind the Doctor.

"Come on! Come on!" The Doctor shouted helping Mrs Moore out of the tunnels then sealed it shut with his sonic screwdriver.

"Oh, good team, Mrs Moore. Rita are you okay?" He asked the brunette a hand on her chest.

"I'm good" she breathed waving her hand.

"Right then" The Doctor nodded. "Let's continue" Rita and Mrs Moore both agreed following the Doctor.

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The three turned a corner and came face to face with a Cyberman The Doctor stood a little in front or Rita and Mrs Moore.

"You are not upgraded." It stated in the annoying robotic voice Rita dispised. Why couldn't it sound like K9? That would be hilarious.

"Yeah? Well, upgrade this." Mrs Moore threw a rod with copper wire over Rita's shoulder at the Cyberman which started to spark, jerk uncontrollably and collapsed.

The Doctor couldn't help but grin at the sight and asked in a quite high pitched voice making Rita giggle a little:" What the hell was that thing?"

"Electromagnetic bomb." Mrs Moore told them moving forward a little. "Takes out computers, I figured it might stop the cyber-suit."

"You figured right. Now, let's have a look." The Doctor walked over to the Cyberman. "Know your enemy. A logo on the front. Lumic's turned them into a brand." The Doctor removed what was the logo and supposedly the heart. "Heart of steel, but look." He shows them. Rita wrinkles her nose at the sight knowing exactly what it was.

"Is that flesh?" Mrs Moore asked.

"Hmmm. Central nervous system. Artificially grown then threaded throughout the suit so it responds like a living thing. Well, it is a living thing. Oh, but look. Emotional inhibitor. Stops them feeling anything." He took out some of the flesh and looked at it on his fingers then placed it back inside.

"It used to be like us," Rita said sadly. "A life, friends, family, everything all taken because someone didn't want to die"

"But why?" Mrs Moore asked the Doctor.

"It's still got a human brain. Imagine its reaction if it could see itself, realise itself inside this thing. They'd go insane."

"So they cut out the one thing that makes them human." Mrs Moore looked at the Cyberman with pity.

"Because they have to."

"They didn't have to do this, it was selfish, Lumic was selfish by not wanting to die. Everything lives and everything dies, Sarah Jane said that and she was right." Rita spoke angrily. The Doctor reached for her hand knowing that the brunette was upset at what had happened, he was too but just didn't show it as much. The Doctor rubbed circles over her knuckles trying to calm her down.

"Why am I cold?" The Cyberman spoke up its voice sounding as it was in pain and it was.

"Oh, my God." Mrs Moore gasped out. "It's alive. It can feel."

"We broke the inhibitor. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The Doctor looked at the Cyberman sadly.

"Why so cold?" It repeated.

"Can you remember your name?" The Doctor asked trying to switch the conversation.

"Sally. Sally Phelan."

"That's a nice name Sally," Rita said softly trying to give the woman a peaceful death.

"You're a woman." Mrs Moore said in shock.

"Where's Gareth?" Sally asked.

"Who's Gareth?" Mrs Moore frowned a little.

"He can't see me. It's unlucky the night before," said Sally

It then suddenly clicked in Mrs Moores head. "You're getting married."

"I'm cold. I'm so cold." Sally cried out.

"It's all right. You sleep now, Sally. Just go to sleep." He placed the sonic screwdriver inside where the logo of Lumic's company once was and switched the Cyberman off letting Sally rest in as much peace as possible. Rita clung to his back feeling sorry for the woman's death.

"Sally Phelan didn't die for nothing because that's the key. The emotional inhibitor. If we could find the code behind it, the cancellation code, then feed it throughout the system into every Cyberman's head, they'd realise what they are." He told Mrs Moore sensing that Rita needed to calm down a little. He placed a hand behind his back and found hers gently squeezing a little letting her know it would be okay. Rita was never really the emotional type but the woman was practically murdered in cold blood.

"And what happens then?" Mrs Moore asked.

"I think it would kill them. Could we do that?"

"We've got to. Before they kill everyone else. There's no choice, Doctor. It's got to be done." Rita's eyes widened in realisation of what was about to happen. She had been too emotional to think and remember, too selfish and it was going to cost a life. "Doctor!" She shouted, but it was too late and the Cyberman grabbed Mrs Moores shoulder as she stood up killing her with all the volts pulsing through her body.

"No! No, you didn't have to kill her!" He shouted through gritted teeth while pushing Rita behind him pressing her up against his back so he knew she was there and safe.

"Sensors detect a binary vascular system. You are an unknown upgrade. You will be taken for analysis." It said not taking Rita's human vascular also known as the circulatory system into account.

The Doctor did as the Cyberman told him, to follow. He kept Rita close as the Cyberman took him and Rita to Lumic. "Anything?" He whispered to her while walking, keeping as quiet as possible.

"Not yet" She shook her head. He nodded and continued walking in silence the Cyberman's feet in time with what was now millions of other Cybermen marching, echoing the streets.

They walked into the room the Cybermen had taken them both too. Rose and Pete were next to a few computers. The Doctor began to speak sarcastically Rita rolling her eyes at him. "We've been captured, but don't worry, Rose and Pete are still out there. They can rescue us. Oh well, never mind." He walked over to them Rita following giving Rose a hug.

"You okay?" The Doctor asked her after Rita and Rose let go other each other.

She nodded a little sadly, "Yeah. But they got Jackie."

Pete looked up from where he was sitting, he looked lost. "We were too late. Lumic killed her."

"Then where is he, the famous Mister Lumic?" The Doctor looked at the Cybermen for an answer. "Don't we get the chance to meet our Lord and Master?" Rita shivered not knowing exactly why though as if a word triggered something.

Master

Four knocks

The three words echoed in her head. What does that mean? Rita thought confused. The could swear that those words were said in an 'episode' but she couldn't remember or think about it. No matter how hard she tried her brain pushed it away. Why?

"He has been upgraded." A Cyberman informed the Doctor.

"So he's just like you?"

"He is superior." It answered. "The Lumic Unit has been designated Cyber Controller." A door then opened and gas looking like fog seeped out of the door most likely for dramatic effect. A metallic robot-like chair with a larger than normal Cyberman rolled out.

"This is The Age of Steel and I am its Creator." The now Cyberman Lumic spoke in a voice like the other Cybermen but different.

"Mr Lumic" The Doctor stepped closer. "You changing innocent people, humans who did nothing" He spoke deadly and seriously. "If this doesn't stop I will have to force it"

"You cannot stop this" He simply replied. The Doctor stepped back saying no other words knowing that Jake and Mickey were doing something. They then began to hear screams, Rita and the Doctor both knew that they did it.

"That's my friends at work. Good boys!" The Doctor looked up smiling. "Mister Lumic, I think that's a vote for free will." He clicked his tongue and winked.

Lumic answered not seeming fazed at the issue at all. "I have factories waiting on seven continents. If the ear pods have failed, then the Cybermen will take humanity by force. London has fallen. So shall the world."

"But the thing is Mister Lumic that humans will fight because what they see is fear, human instinct to run away from fear" He stopped talking Rita nudged him a little then whispered to him not making it obviously to Lumic. "Secret, the camera" He nodded a little.

"I will bring peace to the world. Everlasting peace" Lumic started to talk countering against the Doctor. "And unity and uniformity."

"And imagination? What about that?" The Doctor asked. "The one thing that lead you here, imagination, you're killing it dead!"

"What is your name?" Lumic asked him.

"I'm the Doctor," He said quite proudly.

"A redundant title. Doctors need not exist. Cybermen never sicken."

"Yeah, but that's it. That's exactly the point! Oh, Lumic, you're a clever man. I'd call you a genius, except I'm in the room even if I wasn't you still wouldn't be a genius because Rita is here." Rita snapped her head in his direction feeling the heat slightly rise to her cheeks she looked down slightly not wanting anyone to notice. "But everything you've invented, you did to fight your sickness. And that's brilliant. That is so human. But once you get rid of sickness and mortality, then what's there to strive for, eh? The Cybermen won't advance. You'll just stop. You'll stay like this forever. A metal Earth with metal men and metal thoughts, lacking the one thing that makes this planet so alive. People. Ordinary, stupid, brilliant people." He finally finished his speech.

"You are proud of your emotions." Lumic noticed speaking as if they were venom.

The Doctor smiled. "Oh, yes."

"Then tell me, Doctor. Have you known grief, and rage, and pain?" Lumic asked him.

"Yes. Yes, I have." The Doctor replied.

"And they hurt?" Lumic pressed on with questioning him.

"Oh, yes."

"I could set you free. Would you not want that? A life without pain?"

"You might as well kill me." The Doctor told him.

"Then I take that option." Lumic simply told him, the Doctor cut in before he could do anything.

"It's not yours to take. You're a Cyber Controller. You don't control me or anything with blood in its heart."

"Hearts" Rita whispered and the Doctor winked at her grinning.

"You have no means of stopping me. I have an army. A species of my own."

"You just don't get it, do you? An army's nothing because those ordinary people, they're the key. The most ordinary person could change the world." The Doctor then looked around the room his eyes finally landing on the camera.

"Some ordinary man or woman, some idiot. All it takes is for him to find, say, the right numbers. Say the right codes. Say, for example, the code behind the emotional inhibitor. The code right in front of him. Knows how to get past firewalls and passwords. Knows how to find something encrypted in the Lumic Family Database, under er. What was it, Pete? Binary what?" He clicked his fingers a few times turning to the man for an answer.

"Binary nine," Pete informed him.

The Doctor grinning looking back at the camera again. "An idiot could find that code. Cancellation code And he'd keep on typing. Keep on fighting. Anything to save his friends."

"Your words are irrelevant," Lumic told him.

"Yeah, talk too much, that's my problem. Lucky I got you that cheap tariff, Rose, for all our long chats. Have got to get you one Rita" he looked at the brunette standing next to him. "You could join our long chats as well"

"On your phone Rose." He looked up at the camera again nodding slightly as if he was telling Mickey and Jake to keep it up.

"You will be deleted," Lumic informed them having had enough of the Doctors rambling.

"Yes. Delete, control, hash. All those lovely buttons. Then, of course, my particular favourite," he looked over at the brunette raised a brow.

"Send" she answered.

"And let's not forget how you seduced all those ordinary people in the first place." He reminded Lumic just as Rose's phone began to beep. "By making every bit of technology compatible with everything else."

"It's for you." Rose chucked the phone at him which he caught.

"Like this." He placed Rose's phone on a docking station the text with the numbers appeared on the screen transmitting it to all of the Cybermen who were now clutching their heads crying out in pain. The code then appeared on every screen in the room.

"I'm sorry." The Doctor looked at them sadly.

"What have you done?" Lumic asked sounding pisses off.

"I gave them back their souls. They can see what you've done, Lumic, and it's killing them!" He. Shouted over the screaming then ran out Rita and Rose following behind along with Pete.

Lumic began to cry out however not doing anything apart from sitting in his chair. "Delete! Delete! Delete!"

The building began to light on fire and burn around them. "There's no way out!" The Doctor shouted.

"Secret" Rita shouted. "Roof!" The Doctor nodded taking the lead and heading up the stairs, the fires continued to burn and sparks started to fly around them, Rose screamed as a spark startled her. Rose's phone then started to ring.

"Little late for that Mickey" Rose said into the phone then hung up following the Doctor up the stairs.

They arrived on the roof and a zeppelin was hovering above them a ladder reaching to the ground for them to climb.

"You've got to be kidding," Pete said sarcastically.

"Rita, Rose, get up." They followed his orders and began to climb, Rita first followed by Rose just behind her. The Doctor then Pete started to climb and the zeppelin then took off.

"We did it! We did it!" Rose shouted happily.

"Not yet" Rita looked down. "Doctor!" She shouted looking down to see Cyber Lumic starting to climb the ladder. The Doctor dived into his jacket pulling out the sonic screwdriver. " "Pete! Take this!" He shouted giving the man his screwdriver. "Use it! Hold the button down! Press it against the rope. Just do it!"

Pete placed the screwdriver just below his feet and pressed the button. "Jackie Tyler. This is for her!" He shouted as the rope snapped, Cyber Lumic cried out falling to his certain death. The power station then completely lit up in flames lighting the sky and Lumic continued to fall then was completely engulfed in the flames.

"Now we did it" Rita deeply breathed out. Rose shouted out at the top of her lungs "woo hoo!" The Doctor and Rita laughed.

"Time to go home" he smiled.

"Time to go home" Rita nodded in agreement as the zeppelin continued to fly and the three with Pete Tyler bellow them continued to climb up.

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Rita stood leaning against the TARDIS, the day after the long night with the Cybermen, she sighed looking up at the sky smiling a little.

"So, what happens inside that thing, then?" Pete asked Rose nodding over to the TARDIS, Rose looked back at it then asked: "Do you want to see?

"No, I don't think so. But you three." He nodded over to Rita and the TARDIS again meaning Rose, Rita and the Doctor. "You know, all that stuff you said about different worlds. Who are you?" He asked.

"It's like you say. Imagine there are different worlds, parallel worlds. Worlds with another Pete Tyler and Jackie Tyler's still alive, and their daughter." She told him.

"I've got to go," Pete told her not wanting to hear it anymore.

"But if you just look inside." Rose tried to convince him to stay.

Pete shook his head. "No, I can't. There are all those Lumic factories out there. All those Cybermen still in storage. Someone's got to tell the authorities what happened, carry on the fight"

The Doctor stepped outside the TARDIS, Rita moved out the way still in the uniform from last night.

"Rose? I've only got five minutes of power. We've got to go." He told her.

Rose turned from the Doctor and looked at Pete not backing down. "The Doctor could show you."

"Thank you. For everything."

Rose didn't know what to say, she hadn't said it forever and now she finally got the chance. "Dad."

Pete shook his hand again. "Don't. Just, just don't." He then turned and left.

"Here it is. I found it. Not a crease." Mickey walked towards the TARDIS handing the Doctor his suit. "Sorry Rita your jacket or shoes weren't there" she groaned out in annoyance.

"My suit!" The Doctor beamed. "Good man." He patted the man's back then noticed the look on the brunette's face. "Sorry Rita the TARDIS will have some more shoes for you, now then, Jake, we've got to run. But one more thing. Mrs Moore. Her real name was Angela Price. She's got a husband out there, and children. Find them. Tell them how she died saving the world." He looked at Jake slowly explaining to him he nodded in response.

"Yeah, course I will." 

"Off we go, then." The Doctor turned around to head back towards the TARDIS with Rita and Rose but then stopped.

"Er, thing is, I'm staying." Mickey told them.

"You're doing what?" The Doctor asked and Rose choked up a little.
"You can't."

"It sort of balances out, because this world lost its Ricky, but there's me. And there's work to be done with all those Cybermen still out there." He explained to them.

"But you can't stay." She told tears in her eyes.

"Rose, my gran's here. She's still alive. My old gran, remember her?" He asked and she nodded in reply.

"Yeah."

"She needs me."

"What about me? What if I need you?" She asked him.

"Yeah, but Rose, you don't. It's just you, him and Rita, isn't it. We had something a long time ago, but not anymore." He said looking over at the Doctor then Rita.

"Well, we'll come back. We can travel anywhere. Come and see you, yeah?"

"We can't do that" Rita explained. "Even I shouldn't be here, Rose like the Doctor said it's impossible to travel between parallel worlds" the brunette looked over at the Time Lord who nodded at her.

"We only got here by accident." He added. "We fell through a crack in time. When we leave, I've got to close it. We can't ever return."

"Doctor." Mickey walked over to him shaking his hand.

"Take Rose's phone. It's got the code. Get it out there. Stop those factories. And good luck, Mickey the idiot." He grinned.

"Watch it." Mickey pointed at him chuckling. The Doctor just grinned then handed Rose's phone to him and walked back into the TARDIS.

"And your other title, Mickey the tin dog" Rita laughed giving Mickey a hug. "We'll see you soon" she whispered. Mickey frowned and she winked then whispered "Secrets for next time"

"Goodbye Rita, look after him and Rose"

"Will do" she nodded walking into the TARDIS.

"Thanks. We've had a laugh though, haven't we? Seen it all, been there and back. Who would have thought, me and you off the old estate, flying through the stars."

"All those years just sitting there, imagining what we'd do one day. We never saw this, did we?" She asked smiling at him.

"Go on, don't miss your flight." He told her nodding to the TARDIS, she gave him a warm hug nodded to Jake then walked into the TARDIS.

"Jake, you want to watch this," Mickey told him

"What the hell?" He's eyes widened.

"That's the Doctor in the Tardis with Rose Tyler and Rita Stone."

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Without a single word, Rita walked over to the blonde pulling her into a hug. "It's okay, though,"  she told her rubbing her back. She saw the Doctor out of the corner of her eye and sadly smiled. The brunette smiled back continuing to comfort the blonde. She nodded at him and as if he could read her mind slowly he moved around the TARDIS which then began to travel through the vortex and then materialise.

Rose stopped hugging the blonde and walked out stopped at the door and staring at her mother.

"You're alive. Oh, mum, you're alive." She gasped running to her mum and hugging her, making sure she was there and that it wasn't all a dream.

"Well, I was the last time I looked. What is it? What's happened, sweetheart? What's wrong?" She asked then looked up at the Doctor. "Where did you go?"
"Far away. That was far away." He asked. Rita slowly walked out the TARDIS standing beside the Doctor.

"Where's Mickey?" Jackie asked then looked at Rita. "Who are you?"

"He's gone home." The Doctor said sounding in some pain.

"Rita Stone, I'm a friend" the brunette smiled softly.

And next, we have 'The Idiots Lantern' where Rita will have to make a choice whether to go with Rose or stay with the Doctor... Let's just say a thing or two is learnt. ;)