Ficlet: Invaders
Jul. 31st, 2025 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Invaders
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Team Torchwood, Invaders.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 711
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The Torchwood team have an annoying city-wide problem to deal with.
Written For:
templefugate’s prompt ‘Any, any, home invasion’, at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Another day, another problem, but isn’t that always the way with Torchwood? Sometimes it would just be nice to get through an entire week without some new potential disaster to deal with. On the other hand, at least they seldom have time to get bored, although that can be a bit of a mixed blessing. Maybe a bit of boredom now and then might be nice. Or maybe not.
The trouble with having nothing to do is that certain people have a way of making trouble, and more work, for everyone else when they have nothing else to keep them occupied. At least that’s not likely to be an issue at present, since the current disaster in the making is proving more than enough to occupy every member of the team.
The official story is that Cardiff is experiencing a spate of home invasions. It’s even sort of true, because cover stories always work best if they’re close to the truth, and every one of the victims believes it completely, due to strategic doses of Retcon and Torchwood’s powers of persuasion. It means that while the people affected are understandably shocked and unavoidably traumatised, they’re not panicking, and neither are the rest of Cardiff’s citizens. Most people are simply following the advice of the Cardiff police to take sensible precautions, report anything that seems suspicious, keep doors and windows locked, leave outside lights on all night, if they have them, and to only open their door after dark to people they know.
Not everyone has seen or heard the news, however, and there are always people who think such advice doesn’t apply to them, because they live in a nice neighbourhood, or because they don’t have anything worth stealing, or even because no one gets to tell them how to live their lives. This being the case, another ‘home invasion’ is currently underway, but Torchwood has been monitoring CCTV and security cameras throughout the city, so they’re on the scene within a few minutes, capturing the culprit, and retconning the ‘victims’ and any witnesses before anyone can get hurt.
Unfortunately for the Torchwood team, this probably won’t be the last time they have to deal with this particular problem. The invaders are crafty, elusive, and there are still a few on the loose, despite the team’s efforts to round them up, but each one caught is one less still wandering around causing trouble and property damage, scaring Cardiff’s citizens, and generally being a nuisance.
Once they’re all in custody, they can be loaded back onto their ship and sent packing, with directions on where to go, and possibly a more accurate star chart than the one they’ve been using, because even a squad of stray Sontarans, no matter how much of a pain they are, don’t deserve to be locked up for life just because they took a wrong turn and ended up on earth by mistake.
The hardest part is convincing Sontarans that they’re not where they think they are. Most of them remain convinced that they’re on Giznak IV, despite the fact that humans do not resemble Giznakians in the slightest, being too tall and not having enough limbs. They’re also completely the wrong colour, and don’t have feathers, but try explaining any of that to fifty or so Sontarans who just want to get on with their part of the invasion.
Then again, Sontarans have never been the brightest bulbs in the box, so no matter how many times the team explain that they’re on the wrong planet, they’re not buying it. They’ve already tried to convince several garden gnomes and a lawn flamingo to surrender to the might of the Sontaran army, and killed two occasional tables, a standard lamp, and a grandfather clock because they exhibited threatening behaviour.
On the plus side, so far there haven’t been any human casualties, and with a bit of luck, Torchwood might be able to round up the last few Sontarans before they start blowing things up. Explosions are so much harder to explain away. If Torchwood have to resort to the ruptured gas main explanation again, the entire city is going to switch to electricity, and that would just make everyone’s lives even more complicated than they already are.
The End
The trouble with having nothing to do is that certain people have a way of making trouble, and more work, for everyone else when they have nothing else to keep them occupied. At least that’s not likely to be an issue at present, since the current disaster in the making is proving more than enough to occupy every member of the team.
The official story is that Cardiff is experiencing a spate of home invasions. It’s even sort of true, because cover stories always work best if they’re close to the truth, and every one of the victims believes it completely, due to strategic doses of Retcon and Torchwood’s powers of persuasion. It means that while the people affected are understandably shocked and unavoidably traumatised, they’re not panicking, and neither are the rest of Cardiff’s citizens. Most people are simply following the advice of the Cardiff police to take sensible precautions, report anything that seems suspicious, keep doors and windows locked, leave outside lights on all night, if they have them, and to only open their door after dark to people they know.
Not everyone has seen or heard the news, however, and there are always people who think such advice doesn’t apply to them, because they live in a nice neighbourhood, or because they don’t have anything worth stealing, or even because no one gets to tell them how to live their lives. This being the case, another ‘home invasion’ is currently underway, but Torchwood has been monitoring CCTV and security cameras throughout the city, so they’re on the scene within a few minutes, capturing the culprit, and retconning the ‘victims’ and any witnesses before anyone can get hurt.
Unfortunately for the Torchwood team, this probably won’t be the last time they have to deal with this particular problem. The invaders are crafty, elusive, and there are still a few on the loose, despite the team’s efforts to round them up, but each one caught is one less still wandering around causing trouble and property damage, scaring Cardiff’s citizens, and generally being a nuisance.
Once they’re all in custody, they can be loaded back onto their ship and sent packing, with directions on where to go, and possibly a more accurate star chart than the one they’ve been using, because even a squad of stray Sontarans, no matter how much of a pain they are, don’t deserve to be locked up for life just because they took a wrong turn and ended up on earth by mistake.
The hardest part is convincing Sontarans that they’re not where they think they are. Most of them remain convinced that they’re on Giznak IV, despite the fact that humans do not resemble Giznakians in the slightest, being too tall and not having enough limbs. They’re also completely the wrong colour, and don’t have feathers, but try explaining any of that to fifty or so Sontarans who just want to get on with their part of the invasion.
Then again, Sontarans have never been the brightest bulbs in the box, so no matter how many times the team explain that they’re on the wrong planet, they’re not buying it. They’ve already tried to convince several garden gnomes and a lawn flamingo to surrender to the might of the Sontaran army, and killed two occasional tables, a standard lamp, and a grandfather clock because they exhibited threatening behaviour.
On the plus side, so far there haven’t been any human casualties, and with a bit of luck, Torchwood might be able to round up the last few Sontarans before they start blowing things up. Explosions are so much harder to explain away. If Torchwood have to resort to the ruptured gas main explanation again, the entire city is going to switch to electricity, and that would just make everyone’s lives even more complicated than they already are.
The End
(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-01 07:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-08-01 07:23 pm (UTC)Thank you!