AUTHOR'S NOTE –
This fanfiction is a crossover between Doctor Who and my own personal book series that I am in the process of having published. The story is meant to take place instead of the atrocity known as "Doomsday" – chronologically, right after the episode "Fear her". This is my first fic, so any and all feedback deserves a cookie.
I DO NOT OWN DOCTOR WHO OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS MENTIONED WITHIN.
ANY OTHER CHARACTERS IN THIS STORY BELONG TO ME AND ARE NOT TO BE USED WITHOUT MY EXPLICIT PERMISSION.
enjoy
"So, where do you fancy this time, Rose?" the Doctor shouted above the roar of the Tardis, dancing around her console like a trained professional. (Then again, he was nine centuries old. The possibility of him being an actual certified dancer was quite high – he and Rose had already been to several planets in which the single greatest joy in life was dancing.)
The orange coral interior of the Tardis shimmered under the glare of the console's blue center. The Doctor was wearing his two-piece brown suit and trench coat, with a pristine (soon to be not so pristine) pair of white converse. He'd switched it with the black pair since their encounter with the Isolus, Rose noted. His hair now boasted a more vertical flair, thanks to the generous application of hair gel. She appreciated this look tremendously more than this incarnation's previous do's.
Rose herself was wearing a pair of boot-cut black jeans, a pink and blue hoodie, and sporty trainers. Her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, revealing a slightly childish bead bracelet on her right wrist. Her golden mane flowed over her back like a wave, free and bouncing in time with the Tardis's shuddering. She'd chosen to lighten up the mascara today, and to her delight The Doctor actually had noticed. He never usually did. Maybe there was hope for him after all.
"Don't you mean 'when'?" Rose laughed, well-versed in Timelord vernacular.
"Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey!" The Doctor retorted gleefully, slamming a hand on a number of ancient buttons, "I have a Tardis! The entire universe is our playground, Rose – time, space, and all! Who do you want to swing with?" He lowered his face to the console screen, grinning at his companion across the minefield of buttons and switches.
Rose thought for a moment as she was thrown heedlessly around the control room of the Tardis. They'd already been to Clom twice this year, and they'd risked their lives in the Roman Coliseum while posing as Gladiators. They'd visited a planet where people only ate toast and drank something resembling ketchup. They'd climbed a literal mountain made of grass clippings, and saved a colony of turtle people from fiery destruction. They'd helped a young Isolus get back to its family and simultaneously saved the human population from an eternal paper prison. Each adventure was not quite like the last, and Rose came away from all of them perfectly breathless and in dire need of a good bath. She loved the thrill of it, and she sensed that she was close to enjoying it as much as The Doctor himself. But lately things had been a little too "sci-fi" for her. She wanted something more...fantasy. Princesses and fairies and wizards was one thing, but...it wasn't hardcore enough. Go hard or go home.
"Are there any dragons in the universe?" she asked, not completely serious but interested all the same. "Do they like to swing with aliens?"
The Doctor, still dancing, grinned wider.
"Oh, loads, Rose! And they all live on a planet called the Dragon Star, or 'Draugal Nova' as it's known by the inhabitants. They're practically immortal, too – the dragons can't be killed by another being or object! They have an organ made of pure energy that rests right above the heart - they call it the Soul. It feeds them, heals them, and it can replenish itself almost infinitely. It keeps them alive until its predestined expiration date; they have twice the lifespan of an average human, and then they just pass away when they get too old! Genius!"
He twirled one last time, and then did a double-take at the Tardis screen.
His face fell.
"What?!"
The Doctor proclaimed this, bringing his spacecraft to a halt in mid-travel. Rose steeled herself to avoid whiplash, and all of her hair blew into her face at once. He squinted at the monitor before cramming his lens-less glasses onto the bridge of his nose.
"What?!" he repeated, struggling to comprehend the fast, small text scrolling across the screen.
Rose's smile evaporated at the sight of his expression. She brushed the hair out of her face, perfect eyebrows furrowing in concern. She watched as The Doctor's face evolved into a greater level of shock.
"Doctor? What is it? What's wrong? Are we in trouble?"
She ran up to him, sliding against his thin frame.
On the screen, a repeating message scrolled past in foreign script:
THE PLANET DRAUGAL NOVA IS CLOSED FROM
OUTER ACCESS. THE LORD AND LORDESS HAVE
BEEN KILLED, NEWBORN CHILD STOLEN. THE
PLANET IS UNDER MANDATORY LOCKDOWN
UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
ISSUE DATE: 736205 – 4267 – 2620
The Doctor was silent for a long time.
The Tardis went still, trying not to break his thoughts. The dull bass thrumming stimulated a heartbeat for her, synonymous to meditation music. Rose ran her finger along The Doctor's sleeve, feeling the icy stiffness of his arms beneath the material of his coat and suit. Rose cast her eyes over the screen as well, understanding nothing of what she saw. She would have to wait for him to explain, then. The universe seemed to pause, waiting for him to speak once more.
"We received this message just as the Tardis came within range of the Dragon Star," he said. The Timelord took his glasses off, rubbing his eyes solemnly. "Blimey. Druvidian and Vhysrael…dead?"
The Doctor switched off the monitor, still coming to grips with the situation.
Rose's sympathetic eyes blinked. "I'm sorry, Doctor… Did you know them well?"
The young-looking (but now much older-feeling) Gallifreyan leaned painfully against the Tardis's console. He hunched over the switches, closing his eyes.
"You don't understand, Rose. That message was issued in year twenty-six twenty. In terms of the Dragon Star, that message was sent sixteen years ago. The planet's been in complete lockdown for almost two decades now. And some…some madman has the heir to the planet chained up in his basement, or someplace equally foul, and has no doubt been torturing her for sixteen years. Sixteen. And I had no idea…"
Rose was speechless.
And really, what could she say? This was the kind of sorrow only he could understand in full capacity. It wasn't like losing her granddad. The Doctor had just lost two friends, and what's more he blamed himself for not being there to save them. He always did. Anything and everything tragic that ever happened in the universe became his responsibility from the moment he caught word of it, and if he didn't find out soon enough he kicked himself for being slow on the discovery. No doubt he was wracking his alien brain right now, trying to examine the situation twelve ways to Sunday.
"Doctor…what makes you think that heir's kidnapper's been torturing her?" she asked, trying to ease his guilt.
The Doctor sighed.
"Because I know what Dragons are like, Rose. They're some of the most powerful creatures in the galaxy – at least, of the ones that don't use technological weapons. They can fly, they can breathe fire, and they're impossible to kill. Their strength makes them valuable in the eyes of slave-traders and merchants that deal in the sentient. There are species that actively seek Dragons out, so they can use them as slaves and pack-animals. Dragons rarely attack unless they've been provoked first, and by the time they are…it's too late. So, they make easy victims – and to those that seek out Dragons for their own ends, it makes them very attractive prey."
Rose shuddered just thinking about it.
She couldn't imagine what it would be like if her own mum were hunted like that…or Mickey, for that matter. What would life be like on Earth if humans were seen as more "desirable"? Would she still be alive? Would mum or Mickey or Shreen, or any of her work buds? What about her childhood mates? Would there even be a working society, or would the entire planet turn into a massive alien Nazi extermination camp?
Suddenly, The Doctor's pocket began to itch with psychic energy. He fished the thin booklet out of his bottomless pocket, and flipped it open. On it were written a set of coordinates and two jagged words –
/SHE WAITS/
The Doctor read it thrice to himself, and then showed the message to Rose. Normally psychic paper script was clean, with crisp straight lines. Whatever (or whoever) had sent these words had obviously not taken much effort in getting the message across. Either that, or his mentality was so malicious that his words translated into the "chiller" font from Microsoft Word.
"What does that mean?" Rose asked, getting past her analysis. "'She waits'?"
The Doctor stared into blank space, the rage on his face all too apparent. He stuffed the psychic paper back into his pocket. "It means the killer knows I'm here. They know I've come to the planet, and they're mad enough to bait me into finding his hideout." He looked down at Rose, and then, inexplicably, smiled. "It means that that same person is about to be very sorry they ever met me! HAH!"
He leapt up from beneath his companion's grasp, dancing around the Tardis once more.
"Hold onto your seat, Rose! Looks like you get to see the Dragons after all! ALLONS-Y!"
And with the back-breaking pull of a lever the Tardis and her passengers zoomed into the time-vortex, leaving a despairing planet in their wake.
XXXXXXXXXX
When the Dragon awoke, she was strapped to a table with her wings stretched out wide. Panic was the first thing she knew.
She felt the familiar cold, which was amplified by her sluggish heartbeat. The rank stench of antiseptic metals and spilled alien fluids bombarded her nostrils. The circulation in her arms was less than comfortable, but it was about the most desirable of sensations she'd ever experienced.
Her form was humanoid, save certain draconic elements. Her scales were colored in a pattern that faded from deep scarlet to gold, and then to emerald green and deep turquoise. From her hands to her shoulders this pattern went, as well as from foot-to-thigh, breast-to-chin, lip-to-jaw, and tail tip-to-base. Her body was adorned with blood-red horns, each deadly sharp. Her tail coiled over the end of the table, its scarlet, diamond-shaped blade swinging lethargically. Her glittering wings were pinned beneath her, excruciating. (The membranes were coated in hyper-sensory micro-scales, which were meant for tasting the air current. They were designed for air, not metal and heavy bones. Physical contact such as this was unhealthy, and prolonged trauma would deaden her nerves.)
Hallstalker thought she was beautiful in a way that appealed to his "scientific" curiosity. After all, that was her purpose in life – to be a test-subject.
To be his.
The Dragon screamed in horror and tried to breathe flame, but to no avail – Hallstalker had temporarily frozen her fire-lung. This understanding reached her, and she began to thrash. Her tail strained towards the straps that held her prisoner, but to no avail.
Hallstalker laughed, and typed an intricate command into the keypad of his control panel. In response, thousands of volts of electricity began to course through the Dragon's body.
Her scream turned into a manic roar, and a stream of brilliant blue flame jettisoned from her throat and billowed up into the chamber.
"Damn," Hallstalker thought. "The lung thawed."
Ah, well. The Dragon would pass out soon, so he could start again later. And no sooner had this thought passed his wretched mind than the Dragon slumped back against the table, flames receding back into her lungs. Smoke issued from her eyes and her pores, but Hallstalker was not concerned. Her Soul had healed injuries far worse than this before.
Hallstalker was halfway through another command when he heard the alarms. And based upon the pitch and intensity of the sound he knew that a craft of unknown origin had landed in the planet's atmosphere.
No, not landed – materialized.
Hallstalker ordered two androids of Dalek origin to take the Dragon back to her cell. She was the least of his worries now.
He was expecting a Timelord.
XXXXXXXXXX
AUTHOR'S NOTE -
This is an edited version. I'm going back and adding some stuff to the old chapters, so it's noticeably longer and hopefully it makes a bit more sense in terms of flow.
-Atlas