Disclaimers: I do not own Torchwood, Doctor Who, or any of their respective characters. I am merely borrowing them for entertainment purposes and an making no money with this.
Notes: Completely and utterly random nonsense. The parts themselves will be short, bordering on drabbles. This has been brewing about in the back of my mind for years. For a time, Tenshi-Chan and I were considering doing it as a comic series (Not Doctor Who/Torchwood related, but using original characters), but neither of us can draw.
Raising the Demon Horde
Attempt Number One
Saxon crowed with sheer delight. Finally, after so many long years, his long sought after desire for world domination was within his grasp. He'd come a long way from being the only son of a relatively low-ranking Duke of the Queen's court. A talent for magic had gotten him an apprenticeship with the royal wizard, then sent off to an academy for further study.
Power was something he had always sought, even as a child when he would play with the stable master's son. He'd always dreamed of greater things, of more; having more, doing more, being more. Father had put a stop to that friendship as soon as he'd discovered its existence, dismissing the boy's father from his employ and forcing the family from the village. Indecent, Father had called it. They were of different classes and shouldn't fraternize.
Saxon never had discovered what had happened to his friend. There one day, then gone the next, disappeared in the night with no trace. Strange now that his one-time friend was here now as his enemy, trying to stop Saxon's dream from reaching fruition.
John Smith. What a stupid name for a wizard. Not terribly awe-inspiring, was it? But then it wasn't the name his friend had been born with, just as Harold Saxon wasn't his name either. Names had power, and no self-respecting wizard went around giving out their real name without expecting dire consequences in return. They had been childhood friends. Naturally, they knew each other's true names, and so many other little secrets that could be used against each other. But there was a sort of respect between them. As easy as it would have been, neither had ever used that knowledge against one another. Where would the fun be in that? Not that Saxon had needed to anyway. Smith had been ridiculously easy to catch.
Smith and his companion - some blonde girl - were currently chained to one of the pillars that circled the room. The blonde was pretty, but then Smith had never had difficulty attracting pretty people, even when he'd been a child. And here he was, all grown up; tall and skinny, running here and there and everywhere, sometimes bordering on outright rude in his enthusiasm. This girl, Rose, she seemed quite eager to keep up with his madcap dashes. They could have been a little more careful in breaking into Saxon's estate. It mattered little. They had been caught and they were here now. Saxon did so enjoy having an audience, especially in his time of triumph.
He had everything ready. He had the spell he wanted. Or at least, he was relatively certain of it. The dialect was ancient and what few words he could translate did indicate that it would raise a horde of demons to serve his whims. With demons at his beck and call, he could easily have everything he wanted.
He flicked a glance over at Smith, thinking about things he couldn't have. Things he wanted. Things that might be possible when he ruled the world. And things that maybe would be unreachable if he succeeded.
He shook his head at that. When he succeeded. He wouldn't fail. He'd show them, everyone who had ever looked down on him. All those fools at the academy who had thought themselves better, the teachers, the students. His father and everyone else who'd ever denied him anything, who'd ever used him and thrown him aside, who'd ever hurt him. He ripped his eyes away from Smith's older-than-natural brown eyes. Saxon focused on the work table in front of him, idly fingering one of the candles that he'd lit earlier.
"Ianto!" he bellowed.
His assistant set the book down in front of him almost before he'd finished calling his name. It was even turned to the appropriate page. "Master," the young man said smoothly, backing away with a respectful bow to his head.
Saxon had found the youth purely by accident. It was a chance meeting in a seedy pub, generally not the type of place Saxon regularly frequented, but he'd been having a bad day. He'd found someone who was having a worse day. An archivist without an archive, Ianto was one of a very few survivors of the destruction of Torchwood Castle. A tragedy, hundreds of lives lost. But Saxon also considered them fools, children playing around in things they couldn't understand. They'd been full of themselves, thinking that anything magical could and should be used for whatever purpose they wanted. They'd had no respect for the magic, and they had suffered for it. Saxon wasn't sad to see them go. If anything, they would have been one of the few forces strong enough to stand up against him. Now they were gone. What remained of their number was scattered across the lands, a few of them congregating together to start anew, hopefully remembering the lesson they had learned.
And then there was the loss of the archives themselves. Torchwood Castle had been one of the great repositories, a vast storehouse of magical artifacts and texts. All those books and scrolls, all that knowledge, now gone. All except for the ones Ianto had managed to smuggle out in the midst of the chaos. Including the one set in front of Saxon right now.
Saxon fingered the edge of a fraying page. With a smile, he began the incantation, deaf to the shouts and pleads of his childhood friend. How could he stop now when he was so close to everything he'd ever wanted? He wouldn't.
With each word, the power grew. He could feel it, spreading out from the center of his being. Ianto handed him ingredients as needed, otherwise remaining a silent spectator to the coming greatness. The energy built around Saxon, inside Saxon, sending tingles through his skin. It coalesced in a ball of warmth in his chest, a comforting heat that pulsed in time with his heart.
He spoke the final word. Nothing happened.
Saxon frowned. Where was his horde of demons? What had gone wrong? He looked at Ianto, seeing his own confusion mirrored on the young man's face. With a growl, Saxon demanded answers, picking apart everything Ianto had done, every ingredient he had gathered.
Was it getting warm?
Saxon shook his head. What could have happened? He'd wanted to rule the world. Instead, he had nothing. He grabbed the book, sneering and staring at the unfamiliar words. Maybe it was the wrong spell.
The words blurred before him, a wave of dizziness causing him to drop the book. Ianto picked it up, not seeming to notice Saxon's distress. He looked over the spell himself while Saxon leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table. He was suddenly acutely aware of what was wrong with him, but it made no sense. Heat pooled low in his belly, and his breathing became labored as a good portion of his blood began to move in a southward direction.
"Ah," Ianto said, then began to gnaw at his lower lip. "I, um, I see."
"What is it?" Saxon demanded, trying and failing to ignore the straining in his breeches.
"Well, I, it seems we may have translated incorrectly." He turned the book toward Saxon, showing him the spell. He pointed to one particular squiggle. "That doesn't say raise, it says arouse."
Saxon stared at the words again. A few others that he had thought he'd translated poorly made so much more sense now. "Bloody idiot! That's not a demon summoning spell! It's a cure for impotence!"
Ianto's cheeks were flushed red with embarrassment. "Sorry, Sir. I know I saw a demon summoning spell in one of my books. I'll find it."
"Great! That's all well and good, but what do I do about this?" He gestured down at himself, but remained standing half-turned away from Ianto, his lower body remaining hidden by the solid table in front of him and the, thankfully, loose robes he'd worn today. If only his breeches had been so loose. He shook with the effort to keep from palming himself through the constrictive fabric.
The blush on Ianto's cheeks darkened and stretched to reach his ears. He stammered and struggled over his words, then finally and adamantly declared. "That is not what I was hired for, Sir!"
"This is your mess!" Saxon countered. Then he threw his hands up. "Never mind! I'll take care of it myself!" And he stormed off to do just that.
Ianto's voice caught him as he grabbed the handle of the door. "And what do I do with our guests?" he asked tentatively.
"Oh, let them go," he grumbled, embarrassed by both his failure and arousal. Nothing he could do about the former, but the latter would be easily rectified once in the confines of his private quarters.
xxxxx
Ianto sighed as he unshackled the prisoners. A job was a job, but he wasn't about to put out for the boss. He smiled a little shakily at the two prisoners; former prisoners now. "Have a nice day," he offered a little lamely. Then he went off to tidy up.
As he was cleaning up the mess left behind by the spell, he felt a light tapping on his shoulder. He turned, only to find the pretty blonde girl smiling at him. Rose, was that her name? Why hadn't she and the Wizard Smith left yet?
"Can I help you?" There was no sense in being rude.
"Uh, yeah. Well, I was wondering," she said, falling off into a mumble. Pink dusted her cheeks in a cute blush. "Which one was the spell you were using just now?"
"Oh," Ianto felt his own face heating up again as understanding dawned on him. He picked up the book and pointed to the appropriate page. "It was this one."
"Do you think I could borrow it?"
Ianto turned back to the table. He grabbed a scrap of parchment and began to scribble hurriedly. When he finished, he tucked the note into the book, marking the page. He smiled at the blushing girl. "I also included a list of ingredients and how to get them."
Rose beamed at him. "Thank you." She took the book. Then she ran over to where her friend was waiting and grabbed him by the hand, dragging him out of the room and hopefully out of the tower. Ianto almost felt sorry for the poor Wizard, seeing the gobsmacked look on his face.
Ianto shook his head and returned to his cleaning. This had definitely been a strange day. Although it had ultimately ended in failure, it had at least been interesting.
The End for Now
I DO have plans to continue this, and I have outlines for further parts. However, I want to work on other stories as well, so I'm going to mark this as finished, but I will add to it as I finish further parts.
