Torchwood IV 'Missing' Branch

Last of the Decoded Torchwood IV Records. Recovered on the 8th of October 1941. - Philipa Grace, First Branch.

Torchwood Branch IV

These are the orders for immediate feild testing prototype duplicate Vortex Manipulators by the First Branch

We await for you reports on the devices to be delivered on the 16th of August 1938.

-Torchwood I

1938

Torchwood Branch IV

URGENT!!!

DO NOT TEST THE MANIPULATORS!

Treachery and alien infiltration has resulted wit tampering with the devices, they are to be considered unstable, highly dangerous and UNSAFE.

We request for the immediate return of the devices, there is no knowing what the devices are rewired to do.

-Torchwood I

1938

Torchwood Branch IV

Come in! I repeat, come in! Requesting immediate reply and report from Fourth Branch! Come in! Karlton, Amanda, Gerald, Imira, Dean, anyone!

-

ALL TORCHWOOD IV RECORDS BEYOND THIS POINT HAVE CEASED AND ARE TO BE DELETED OR DISPOSED TO CONTINUE THE SAFETY AND DISCRETION OF THE TORCHWOOD INSTITUTES ON BEHALF OF THE FIRST BRANCH. THE FOURTH BRANCH HQ LOCATION IS COMPLETELY DECIMATED, RESULTING IN A DEATH TOLL OF 48 and 67 WOUNDED. THE HQ ITSELF IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. THE FOURTH BRANCH IS NOW OFFICIALLY DETERMINED MIA.

END TORCHWOOD IV FILES.

1941

~-.-.-.-.-.-.-.*.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.~

Year: ???

Enter: Havoc

1st Person POV

Owwww ... first sense I felt; pain. Okay so I wasn't dead. That was more or less good. There was a dullish searing at my eyelids and a mother of all headaches at the front of my head. I felt like someone had stuffed me in a blender, pushed puree for only three seconds and left my rearranged, splattered organ-y mess on the sidewalk. I inhaled the scent of freshly grown spring grass as I realised my face was kissing the dirt in a very uncomfortable position.

"Mother fu-ff!"

I grunted between my teeth as my attempt to swear ended in a mouthful of said vegetation, which was oddly tasted more appealing than the last time I swallowed the common green weed. Not a delicacy by a long stretch but slightly sweeter, and more bearable flavor. And I spat it out again in disgust. Pah! The sudden realisation that what I was lying on might not actually be grass but some result of a Torchwood experiment made me cringe at disgust and thoroughly spit upon the vegetation. After all, grass wasn't meant to taste that good.

Ahh! ... My jaw muscles ached with the sudden action. I think this is one of the rougher places I've been knocked unconscious. Oh god I hope I'm not in enemy and/or alien soil this time passed out from alcoholic gases.

At least it's one of the better smelling unknown locations I've slept on.

Oh right! We were performing a field test for the prototype Vortex Manipulators! The squad were all doing feild tests, on the orders of the First Branch, which I transferred from around a year ago. Me and Fury had finished the teleport function testing and were recording our results behind the observation screen. The next pair were Dean and Amanda testing out teleportation and time transport when there was a great flash of bluish red light enveloping the entire vicinity and we tried to teleport out of the line of danger at the last second, I heard a chaos of screaming and sirens and a call for abort, and ... I had blacked out. What happened after that?

Yowch! I think I'm just bruised up, I don't think there are any broken bones. Oooh my head hurts like a Actepoleon split my skull and made a nest inside my brains.

Are those birds chirping? Maybe I should dispell my personal darkness in case the Chief sees me lazing around and makes me run five miles on the spot.

I cracked open my eyelids and saw the grass. Very, very bright green grass. Okay, that wasn't so bad, so something was somewhat familiar, it didn't seem to have been tampered with. At least not visually.

'Ow!'

The sudden brightness of the grass and light was too much for my retinas at the moment, which felt like lizardworms were eating at the skin. They must still be recovering from the flash of light before. Okay, while I wait for my eyesight to get up to scratch, I should perform a  basic mental check according to protocol.

My name is Imira 'Havoc' Clarkson, and I work for Torchwood Four. My useless brother is Jon 'Fury' Clarkson, also with the Torchwood Fourth branch. Twenty four years of age, tactics specialist, sniper shot, scientist, among other Torchwood professions.

Okay, checks done. I don't give a shit if I didn't complete the entire mental check criteria.

No one really completes it anyway, it was just another thing for rookies to remember on the Torchwood recruitment test.

As I lay there, waiting for the dull throbbing to finish, I took in my situation via touch. The prototype vortex manipulator seemed physically undamaged, still strapped to my left arm, all motor functions were operational, excluding eyesight. There seemed to be no immediate danger, or approaching persons as the ground seemed relatively still. I wasn't bleeding to death at the moment. That was a nice change.

Maybe my eyes are better now.

Opening my lids again, it was definitely less painful this time. Pulling myself away from the surprisingly comfortable greenery that had sent pleasant perfumes to my nostrils, I instantly instead inhaled the pungent odor of charred flesh and vegetation.

Ash fluttered from my pale blonde, ashen hair as I sat up, wrinkling my nose. Ugh, that stink of a burning death, you never get used to it, even after frying aliens in Torchwood for four years.

I observed the scene before me. It seemed as though I was thrown several meters from the main wreckage of whatever explosive was let off burning everything. There was an unmistakable metallic tang of blood in the air and scorch marks were all around. Littered across the grass imperfecting the green carpet was shrapnel, puddles of blood, ash, and bones.

Lots of unidentifiable bones. The closest body had half it's flesh melted off and a skeleton that was twisted into near shapeless blobs. Disgusting. A small body of wood was close by. That's where the bird songs were coming from, so out of place in this scene of gorey faceless corpses. Whatever that had caused the explosion, it was must've been bad.

The hill I found myself upon, apart from the singed grass had a smattering of shrubs that were still burning, while others showed various stages of atomisation or disintegration. The wood seemed earthly enough. Nothing took me as alien about it, HQ was no where to be found, and the smoke was sure to raise the attention of any nearby civilians eventually. Especially with how perfect and serene the skies and surroundings seemed to be, anything like an explosion would stick out like an eyesore.

Then, I heard an unmistakable groan of my deplorable brother.

'Mother fu-'

'Fury! Report!' I yelled. I had high-mid ranking seniority, but it was still more authority than Fury did, so he'd have to answer to my orders.

'Present, reasonably unharmed and sore Havoc-sis ma'am'

'Don't call me that!' I snapped.'Don't move, I'll come to you!'

I got up and attempted to walk to the source of Fury's voice, Attempted being the key word, but my limbs seemed weird and awkward when I stood, and jerked spasmodically as if they were confused with my intentions and I fell flat on my face ... again kissing the dirt.

'What the hell?'

I looked down at myself to assess the problem with my limbs and saw ... hooves. Very ... dark blue ... hooves.

' ... THE FUCK WAS IN MY MORNING COFFEE?!'

A steady rhythm was heard across the land as birds within a fifty kilometer radius fled to the skies in a frightful flight.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

3rd Person POV.

'SHIIIIIIT'

After that loud outburst, a dark blue Earth Pony with a pale, ashen blonde mane and tail stared unbelievingly at her hooves. She was of average height, more athletically built and lean than the average mare. In a blackened and burnt, formerly crisp white shirt that was missing two buttons, square half rimmed glasses, and black slacks she sat in the devastated green hills and rubbed her bright cyan coloured eyes, which had smaller pupils and slightly narrower irises than normal ponies were associated with.

'Okay, you've seen weirder things, right now, concentrate on the job. Puzzle this out later and focus, accept first, ask questions later Havoc.'

Havoc got unsteadily on all fours and weaved her way past the steaming corpses and burning shrubbery to the source of her brother's moaning.

'Will you shut UP Fury? You're not hurt that badly and we need all the minds we can get to focus on this predicament'

'Ah, Imira-sis am I hallucinating or is there a horse who looks remarkably like you (not that there's a long stretch- Ow that plasma stings you know!) looking crossly at me with your compact plasma blaster attached to your prototype vortex manipula- ohhhh' Dawning on his eyes, the slightly lighter shade of blue stallion noticed his change of appearance. He was noticeably taller for a unicorn, with a browner shade of hair than his sister for his mane and tail. His eyes were a more purple shade and he own clothes were now more like rags than ever.

'So ... where's the war?' Fury asked in a weak attempt to joke.

'Honestly Fury, this is no time to joke. I haven't found any of our team other than you and I'd like to find out what exactly transpired here and why the hell we're equine' Honestly, her brother wasn't the professionally trained team mate she had hoped to work with, but because they were so different, and close as siblings, Karlton had thought it was a good idea at the time, Havoc and Fury. It just rolled off the tongue. How very much he regretted pairing the two. Their conflicting personalities and heated sibling rivalry jeapardised more missions than any other team in the Fourth Branch, yet their successful missions far outweighed the failures, that is to say zero.

'Have you found the Chief?' Fury got unsteadily onto his own hooves and started picking up useful debris.

'No, Karlton is nowhere to be found. I was hoping to track him using the signature tracking device we had to track down the rest of the branch. Luck seems to be on our side as it seems to have survived whatever conflict happened here and is perfectly intact.'

Havoc pointed to a slowly blinking device with a black screen that poked from a bush that Fury had just uncovered.

Fury slid the device out with his hoof, not being able to physically possible to actually grip anything after all, and Havoc picked it up with her teeth and set it on a nearby white stone, poking at the controls with a stick.

'Hang on, it's a bit buggy. A few whacks here and- There!'

Displayed on the screen, were two white dots in the center, surrounded by clumpings of orange coloured dots. Havoc drew in her breath as Fury, unfamiliar with said device, asked 'Well, where are they?'

The technology was clearly alien, but adapted to Torchwood use, a white symbol looking like a stylizes omega with a triangle in the middle had a small digital two, while the small, simple upside down triangle had the number twenty three displayed beside it.

'Fury, how many members are in the Fourth Branch'

The blue unicorn thought for a moment, only joining Torchwood seven months ago he still had basic information stamped into his brain from the grueling tour.

'Twenty five'

'There are twenty five persons accounted for on screen,'

'That's good right? It means they're all here!' He began looking around, as if expecting to see a small party of familliar faces turning around the corner any moment.

'Only two are accounted for as alive.'

'What?'

'Look at the screen.' She insisted 'The nearest traced body is less than five meters away in a thirty three degree bearing.'

Looking five meters and thirty three degrees from the north, as the excellently trained soldiers they are, they saw a bubbling, acidic mess of flesh, peeling away to reveal a vaguely equine like skull. A quick glance to the body and you could easily identify a signature green jacket, of a very dead Chief Karlton.

Fury and Havoc looked at each corpse with new realisation in their eyes, each of the twenty three bodies surrounding them, before seemingly pointless pony carnage, with a new light. There was no more Torchwood IV, they WERE Torchwood IV. And the metal scarring the land, was their blown up HQ.

'... We should be dead.' It was not a question, it was a fact. Havoc peeled away from a carcass she was examining for answers. Yes, their team was gone. Yes, everyone was dead. Yes they once knew each of these people. But dead bodies were just that. The Dead. They no longer had any significance to the trained Branch of Torchwood Four. They were dead weight. To be fed back to nature and forgotten before memories of them hold you back. At least that was the Torchwood belief, and she was Torchwood. Their mother had meant nothing to her since she was twenty. But Jon had much to learn.

The pathetic fool. Jon 'Fury' was preparing proper graves like a civilian.

She unceremoniously ripped the rest of the flesh from a leg of one of the unnamed carcasses and popped out the bones, studying them.

'They're gone Fury, they don't matter anymore. They'll only hold you back' She coldly scolded and brought the bone close to her eye for easier inspection.

'Don't do that! We need the whole body intact and put them to a good resting place!'

'Pitiful ideals Jon' Fury suddenly gave her his full attention. She hardly ever called him by his birth name anymore, when she did that he knew to listen, as she was treating him like a brother again.

'When they're dead, they're gone. Literally and metaphorically. They will eventually be erased from your mind and if you hold onto them they may cloud your better judgement. The only thing we must rememebr are facts and information. Forgetwho they were, remember what they have done.The most they could give us now is further insight into the situation before us and feed the earth. So man up and stop pointlessly wasting your energy with making graves and finish the hole instead!'

'They were people Imira, how could you forget them so quickly-'

'I forgot Jasmine' was the icy, clipped reply.

Jasmine, was their mother. To Havoc, she was the deceased forty three year old single mother who was killed in a ruthless alien search of a wanted criminal from their home planet. To her, she was a woman who had borne two children, now members of Torchwood IV. To Fury, she was still their mother. Torchwood seemed to strip away what really defined 'human' once you worked there too long. He joined to keep the only family he had from forgetting that she was human too.

'By studying these bones of five bodies, we can see that though the Tracer defines them as members of Torchwood IV, despite the obvious mutilation of bones, they are all recognizably equine. It wasn't just us that has changed Fury, it's everyone. The energy readings suggest that nothing is abnormal about the bodies, save for their states of decomposition and the fact they are dead. Meaning that this altered form registers as 'normal' in this universe, as this device is meant to adjust to any place in the known universes. Just like the homosapien shape is dominant throughout the galaxies and expressed in many sentient beings back home, this equine shape seems to be dominant in this ... world. For lack of better word. Therefore, I think it is safe to conclude, we have shifted into some place, some dimension, perhaps some universe where the dominant and base form of creatures is equine via the vortex manipulator, as they seem to be at the root of all this.' Havoc summarized,

'If ... we're all horses, how can we talk?'

'A better question would be why do you have a horn?'

'You're not horses silly, you're ponies!' A happy, bubbly, and very unexpected voice interrupted, having popped in sometime during Havoc's speech, breaking the serious, heavy atmosphere of death.

'Wow, you all seem really smart. What are you doing in such a revolting place like this?'

Havoc and Fury turned to a mint green unicorn with flourishing flowers decorating her lavender mane, obviously female and very ... nude.

'Ack! Ever heard of decency?' Fury exclaimed, turning slightly pink, though he didn't know why. He had seen plenty of horses naked before. In fact, when was a horse not naked on Earth? Aside from his sister right beside him as of now. He had even seen aliens naked for crying out loud,

Havoc brushed off her shock quickly and pointed her compact plasma blaster mounted manipulator at the mare, not sure if the device would work after an interdimensional hop. With the state all her companions were in though, she highly doubted it. But the power of a clever bluff was always handy if you pulled it off right.

'Who the hell are you?'

'Huh? Who the hay am I? I'm Fawna Flora, and you two are really strange. I came up here to make sure all the animals near the wood were unharmed by this huge flash of light. And the birds flew off in alarm some time ago, I came all the way out here to see what startled them.'

'Last I checked ponies weren't green' Fury muttered.

'Are you two related?'

'Yes'

'No'

The two, strikingly similar coloured ponies eyed each other disdainfully and as one, looked to the confused mare, who could have had large question marks popping out of her head by now.

'No'

'Oookay then.' She said uncertainly.

Fury and Havoc had exchanged a brief, only-siblings-can-manage conversation during the eye contact.

'Citizen'

'Yup'

'Clearly unarmed'

'How do you know?'

'She's naked!'

'Last time I checked, Jack managed to hide a laser in his-'

'Ugh! Don't bring up that jackass'

'... was that pun intended'

'Indeed'

'I never knew you still had it in you sis.'

'Shut up'

Havoc lowered her hoof which the mare wasn't sure what was meant to do but clearly knew when she was being threatened with a weapon.

'So, I gave you my name, wouldn't it be common courtesy to give me yours?' She asked, shy, in case the scary earth pony decided to bring up her glowy pen thing.

'Imira Havoc'

'Jon Fury'

The siblings easily concealing their similar last name. Everyone called them their codenames though, so when one team member yells Clarkson! There would two replies, so everyone called them Havoc and Fury.

The ponies in question had replied in a very stern, trained manner, reminding Fawna of the Selenial Guards,

'Excuse me, judging by your coats, are you per chance part of the Selenial Guards miss?'

'The who now?' Havoc asked, not wanting to get tangled up in the authorities. It was much better in Torchwood when the Fourth Branch WERE the higher authority. Except maybe for the First Branch and leading commanders of the other branches,

'The Selenial Guards are the personal, all female warrior attendants of the Lunar Princess Selena, sister of Solaris, Princess of the Sun. You're not from around here are you if you don't know them.'

'Clearly.'

'Now that I have answered your questions, I have but one more.' The gentle green mare seemed to shift into a different personality altogether.

'If you aren't with the Selenial Guard, then WHAT THE HAY ARE THERE DEAD PONIES DOING THERE?!' She screamed.

Havoc had forgotten to push the examined bodies into the hole that Fury had recently filled in, burying the rest of the deceased team.

'Uhhhh ... we were framed?'

Goddamnit. Sometimes Havoc swore she had the stupidest brother in the world as she mentally facepalmed (facehoofed? This world seemed to have it's own lingo as the mare before them used 'Hay' in a fashion that was it not used for in their world). It wasn't that he wasn't intelligent, he certainly was. It was just he didn't know when to use his brain. Or when to show he had the slightest signs of possessing a functional brain.