Author Note: OMG! I'm so sorry for the delay in posting! My Dad installed some anti-virus thing on our computer and I haven't been able to get on the internet since...well not until now obviously...so blame my dad for that!
Anyways, here's the next chapter, and hopefully I should be able to get back to regular posting now...if not, never fear, its probably just my computer mucking up again, but I will finish posting this story if it kills me!
So enjoy!
oOo
"You ready for the fight?" Mia gasped as she let go of the fur and licked her lips. Why was it that blood always tasted like iron?
She coughed up a load of fur in disgust then turned to Rose, who'd just done the same.
"What fight?" Rose asked after a moment.
"Well you want to give the crowd their money's worth, don't you?" Mia said, giving Rose that strange tiger grin. They both looked up at the Emperor's box.
Needless to say, he wasn't very happy that his prize tiger had just been killed, but now he had two tigers who were obviously crowd pleasers. Perhaps he could get his money's worth out of them instead.
"Release the prisoners!" he called and there was the sound of grating as all around the arena, more bars were drawn back and a dozen or so frightened people clawed their way up the ramps and out into the arena. When they saw the two blood soaked tigers, and the dead body of a third, they screamed and began climbing the bars, begging to be set free.
Only the Doctor and Jack seemed calm as they wandered over to the tigers and began stroking them. The crowd gasped when the tigers sat and let the two men stroke them. Some even thought they could hear them purring. The Doctor examined their wounds critically and wished he'd still got his sonic screwdriver, which the guards had confiscated when he'd been caught.
"Get them fighting!" cries rang out from all around the arena and then stones were being hurled in their direction. Mia and Rose bolted away from the stones, but the Doctor and Jack angrily ran right at the nearest guy and grabbed him through the bars. The guy punched Jack, sending him sprawling back into the sand. The Doctor tried to back out of the way, but he was grabbed round the throat by another man. Mia saw this and darted forwards, grasping the man's arm with her teeth, causing him to let go of the Doctor, who staggered back.
There was a cheer from the other prisoners, who all surged towards the door as a guy with a gun ran in, leaving the gate wide open. He levelled the gun at Mia, but was knocked off his feet by Rose.
"The door!" the Doctor yelled and there was a mad dash as guards on the outside, and the captives on the inside all ran for the door. Rose and Mia made it out first and chased the guards away, while Jack led the prisoners to safety and the Doctor ran back down to the cells to collect his things.
oOo
"Rose!" Mia called through the frightened crowd to her friend, who was having far too much fun chasing anything that moved.
"Rose! Leave the nice people alone!" Mia called as Rose dissapeared up some steps, sending a tidal wave of people running down the other way. Mia ignored them and barged through, following Rose.
Those who weren't fleeing the grounds in fright were running back down into the cage, where they reckoned they were safe.
Meanwhile, Rose had found the Emperor in his dignitaries box and was now cornering him. Several people gasped when they saw him trip and fall backwards against the wall.
"Rose, leave him alone!" Mia yelled, but Rose wasn't listening, so Mia gathered up all her strength and leapt into the box, yelping as she landed on her bad paw, which sent pain shooting up to the wounds on her neck. "The Doctor's waiting. Come on!" she continued through gritted teeth, but Rose wasn't listening.
"You almost killed us...for sport!" she growled accusingly at the cowering Emperor.
"He can't understand you," Mia pointed out, her tail flicking impatiently.
"I don't care. I'm going to make him pay for everything he's done today."
"What's got into you?" Mia exclaimed. "This isn't the Rose Tyler I know."
"Well surprisingly enough, I have been changed into a tiger!" Rose snapped back.
"Your looks aren't the only things that have changed," Mia muttered, hoping Rose wouldn't hear. But tigers have excellent hearing, so unfortunately she did.
"Whats that supposed to mean?"
"Well look what you've turned into. You're a killer. You're trying to kill someone because of what he's done to you. That's not what you do, when your a human anyway. You'd leave him for either the Doctor, or someone else to sort out. You'd never kill a human before, so why now?"
"Because I'm a tiger. That's what I do!" Rose replied, before turning her attention back to the Emperor, who'd been trying to shift sideways towards the door of the box, utterly confused as he watched the two tigers growl at each other.
Mia could only see one way to get her friend to listen to her now, but she didn't want to do it. However, when Rose raised a dagger filled paw, Mia darted forwards and bit her sharply on the tail. Rose howled in pain, then spun round completely to face her friend.
"What the hell was that for!" she snarled.
"You wouldn't listen," Mia reasoned, but she knew she'd pushed Rose too far now. Rose raised her paw again, but instead of using it on the Emperor, she attacked Mia instead.
Her attack was so forceful that both tigers fell out of the box, tumbled down two flights of stairs and lay winded for a second at the bottom, amongst a small crowd who'd become trapped. Several screams rose as the two tigers staggered back to their feet and then launched at each other.
They clawed, bit, ripped and growled, each trying to get the deadly neck lock on the other.
oOo
Jack and the Doctor, who'd climbed back into the stands to find out what was taking their companions so long, gasped as they saw that the two were now trying to kill each other, while screaming people desperately tried to get out of the way.
"Well that certainly puts new meaning into the phrase 'Cat Fight'," Jack muttered as he and the Doctor began climbing back down towards their friends.
"What's got into them?" he added.
"Don't you remember what Sergey told us?" the Doctor replied.
Sergey was a prisoner they'd met during their escape, and he'd told them all about the planet's strange and barbaric customs, and the laser ray that had been used on the two girls.
"We all have an animal inside us, and that ray brings it out, turns us into it. The longer we stay as that animal, the more it will take over our brain until soon we are no longer ourselves, and we think and act just like that animal would. We won't be able to distinguish the difference between friends and predators or prey.
Every week, the Emperor sends out his guards to capture anyone they find. Half are allowed to remain as people, the other half are transformed using their rays, given a few hours of freedom to get used to their new body, then captured and brought back here for fighting."
"So that means that Mia and Rose are becoming more and more 'tigerish' every minute," Jack realised and the Doctor nodded.
"Tigers are solitary animals. They live alone, and hunt alone, until they meet a partner. But two tigers of the same sex will fight to the death to protect their territory...not just the males, like it shows on all these animal documentaries you and Rose watch."
"And Tobias? He was a guy. Why fight a girl?"
"Tobias has been trained to fight, so he'd attack anything that moved."
"Fascinating," Jack exclaimed, earning him a dig in the ribs for stealing the Doctor's favourite word.
"You!" the Doctor called to one guard standing beside them now. He wasn't much older than Rose, and certainly wasn't able to use the huge rifle he was carrying.
"Give me that!" the Doctor called, so the boy threw him the rifle, which the Doctor pointed into the air and let off several times. He hated guns, but this time, it was necessary.
After the thunderous cracks had silenced, a deadly hush fell over the stadium and even Rose and Mia had paused.
"Mia...Rose - whoever's biting the other's neck - let her go," the Doctor sighed in a tone that sounded like he was telling off two children for a playfight that had got out of hand.
Mia obediently let go and Rose sat up again, both looking thoroughly fed up, and very angry.
"Right. Now that I have your undivided attention, I have just one thing to say to you both," he continued. They looked at him, expecting him to tell them off, or shout at them, but all he said was "Run!"
They both grinned and bolted towards the exit together, their fight apparently forgotten.
Jack shook his head in disbelief as he and the Doctor chased after them.
"How is it that one minute their killing each other, the next they're the best of friends again?"
"They're trying to fight against the effects of that laser thingy. All they need is a little reminder of who they really are, and it gives them the strength to ignore it for the time being."
"And how did 'Run!' remind them of who they are?"
"Because that's the first word I said to both of them, when I met them. Rose was being chased by Autons, and Mia was being chased by a snowman."
"A snowman!" Jack exclaimed, then burst out laughing. "Oh I'm never gonna let her forget that!"
"Oh dear," the Doctor chuckled, knowing he'd probably made Mia's life hell, having just given Jack the ammunition he needed to wind her up non stop every time someone mentioned snow (which strangely happened quite alot in the TARDIS). Mind you Mia could easily give as good as she got, so Jack had better be careful.
"So they're Rose and Mia again?" Jack double checked as they saw the two tigers pause at the beginning of the forest Mia had been caught in earlier. He still didn't want to trust two wild tigers until he was sure they were perfectly safe.
"For now, yes. But there's no telling when they'll change again."
