A/N: Lol I bet everyone who gets an alert will be like WTF?! This kind of died on its arse for a while, but I managed to piece together this atrocious chapter. Well, I managed to piece it together while my freakin internet was off. My line got terminated because we didn't pay our phonebill lol! So to everyone who was waiting for me to beta stuff and people who PMd me I wasn't being a cock and ignoring you, I was sitting in the corner seething because I couldn't get online. But hopefully everything shall be back to normal and I'll get this story finished. Hopefully.

Chapter Eighteen

Fluke

As he looked into the face of the hissing young dragon, the Doctor ran through as many plans as his brain could think of. Not one of them was usable, and a few of them were just downright ridiculous. Where the hell was he supposed to get toothpicks from anyway? Sometimes being resourceful had its downsides.

It didn't surprise him that Feelia was already swinging his fists at the dragon that was approaching him. It dodged him and hissed in annoyance. Feelia was yelling all kinds of insults at it. Karl was ready for his dragon to attack, but he wasn't making the first move like his foolish companion was. The Doctor wasn't going to attack his dragon, and he wouldn't be prepared for it attacking him either.

'Okay,' he breathed. 'Right. Dragons… dragonsdragonsdragons…' He mused over his knowledge of the creatures and then sighed heavily when he realised the knowledge he had was quite trivial. 'I wish I'd paid attention to those documentaries on the TV…'

The dragon in front of him ducked its head, and took a step forward. The Doctor held up a hand. 'Whoa there, nelly,' he said to it with raised eyebrows. 'Not so close.'

At the sound of his voice, the dragon hesitated. The Doctor leapt on this opportunity, seeing as it was probably the only one he would have before he was ripped to shreds.

'What are the three of you doing in here, eh? Look at you, you're only babies. Where's your mum, eh? Bet she wouldn't be happy with you locked up down here with your brother and sister.' The Doctor glanced around at the two heroes before continuing. 'You're not going to get much of a meal out of us three you know. I'm all bones and those two… those two are just gristle and… and fresh air probably.'

The dragon hissed once, but made no attempt to advance on him any more. If anything, it just looked confused. It probably had been expecting the Doctor to have the same reaction to it that Feelia had. One of the few things he knew about dragons was that they tended not to attack unless threatened or extremely hungry.

'Feelia, leave it.' The Doctor called over his shoulder, not taking his eyes from the dragon in front of him.

'It is my birthright to destroy this creature!' Feelia called back. 'I shall try to defeat it even if it kills me!'

The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes. 'Okay fine, if you two have death wishes that's fine by me, but don't drag me down with you.' While he spoke, the torch waved in his hand. The dragon's attention was drawn to the light, like a cat was drawn to the reflection of a watch on the wall. The Doctor considered this for a moment, before taking the light from the creature and shining it against the back wall. The dragon released a strange, low growling sound and then dived towards the circle of light, scratting at it with its large claws. The Doctor chuckled with delight.

'What in the King's name are you doing?' Karl demanded in bewilderment.

Grinning, the Doctor glanced back to him. 'It's just a baby!' he exclaimed. 'It just wants to play.' He waved the light around and the dragon scrabbled around, desperately trying to catch it. 'Aw isn't it cute?'

A thump and a growl caught his attention and he looked around to see Feelia holding a long white stick, waving it threateningly in front of the dragon's face. Its teeth were bared and clouds of steam were puffing out of its nostrils. Feelia hopped from foot to foot, and then solidly whacked the dragon on its head for the second time.

'Feelia!' the Doctor cried. 'Throw the stick!'

Feelia turned and looked at him in confusion. 'It's not a stick. It's a bone.'

The Doctor blinked, then gritted his teeth. 'I don't care what it is, just throw it!'

'But it's my weapon!'

'Throw the bloody bone, Feelia!'

Feelia frowned deeply and turned back to the growling creature. It's head ducked downwards, obviously ready to lunge at him. He pulled back the bone, ready to strike it again.

'Feelia, do as the man says.' Karl ordered.

Feelia looked to him in disappointment. Apparently Karl had to be obeyed and with an irritated snort, Feelia tossed the bone away into the darkness. To his surprise, the dragon let out a strange, dog-like yelp and scampered off after the bone. The dragon standing toe to toe with Karl was watching the other two dragons, the prince in front of it forgotten. It hesitated, and then frolicked off after Feelia's dragon.

'Right,' the Doctor breathed. 'That should keep them occupied for a minute or two. Now… we need an escape route.'

Karl scratched his chin. 'If this is the fifteenth dungeon on the west side, which I'm quite positive that it is, then there should be a sewage outlet towards the back somewhere, leading out to one of the valleys.'

The Doctor frowned. 'How could you possibly know that?'

Karl shrugged. 'It's a hero's duty to know the layout and escape routes of all the castles in the land.' He replied. 'I think there may be… about five different ways out of this room. The sewage is the safest, I believe.'

The Doctor gaped at him. 'You mean to say… in the room we were in before you knew how to get out? I thought you were thick to start with but this is just…' He stopped himself and sighed. 'Right, okay. Sewage pipe it is, and it wouldn't be the first time I've said that.'

Feelia and Karl looked at him questioningly. He shook his head and waved a dismissive hand at them. In the darkness, the two dragons were snarling and squabbling over the thrown bone. The third dragon was still attacking the shuddering spot of light on the wall.

'Which way?' the Doctor asked.

Karl glanced around, and then pointed to the far end. 'It should be over there.'

The Doctor nodded, knowing they needed the torch to get out. Before they could make a move to the pipe, he had to distract the dragon with something else. 'You two go find the pipe.' He told the two stocky heroes. 'I'm going to need a direct run there because these three will probably see me as another game.'

'But they're distracted.' Karl replied. 'They shouldn't notice.'

The Doctor sighed heavily. 'Can you just do it please? Why does everyone have to question everything I say? Can't someone just trust my word for once? It's all 'But Doctor' this and 'Why Doctor' that. Just get on with it, will you?'

The two heroes stiffened, like they were about to accuse him of once again disrespecting their manhood, but Karl relaxed. He slapped Feelia on one of his swollen biceps and nodded for him to follow. Reluctantly, Feelia did so.

The wait for them to confirm the whereabouts of the exit seemed to take a long time, and for a few apprehensive moments he thought the two of them had left without him. But finally, he heard Karl's low voice.

'Over here.' He said. 'There's a grate over the hole, but we can easily pull it off.'

The Doctor nodded, relieved. 'Wait a moment before you do, because the noise will probably-' He was interrupted by the loud, echoing sound of metal scraping on stone. Immediately the dragon who had been playing with the light spot whirled around, wings shooting out like an umbrella. Its mouth opened and it bellowed loudly at the Doctor. Similar sounds rippled from the darkness, signalling that the two others had also had the same reaction.

The Doctor spun on his heels and raced towards the two bickering heroes. He could hear the claws of the creatures scraping on the stone floor, not very far behind at all. Karl and Feelia appeared in the line of the torch, both holding a large, heavy looking grate between them. They looked around in alarm, saw the Doctor racing towards them and instinctively dropped the grate and fled through the hole. The Doctor dived in after them, feeling icy fingers of cold air curl around the back of his neck. The air was disturbed just behind his legs. The dragon's huge claw had missed him by millimetres.

The metal grate caught his foot and he went head over tail and landed in something cold, slimy and putrid. He rolled over quickly and shone the torch to the entrance of the hole, to see one of the dragons peering in at him. Its lips curled back as it snarled, but it made no attempt to follow. The reason for that being there was no way that it could fit.

'There,' the Doctor breathed. 'That wasn't so bad, was it?'

The three men had to squat in the hole as it was only about four feet high. Feelia practically filled the whole thing. The Doctor leaned to shine the torch past the two of them, ignoring the angry growls of the dragons behind him.

'How far is it?' he asked Karl.

'About two miles.' Karl replied. 'We should come out just on the edge of the Dark Woods.'

The Doctor clicked his tongue. 'So I take it we'll have to turn around and walk two miles again to get back to the castle. Talk about inconvenient.'

'Wait,' Feelia frowned, trying to make himself more comfortable and failing. 'You mean to say we're coming back?'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. 'Of course we are. You didn't think we were all going to go home and have a nice cup of tea, did you? That awful little dwarf has my sonic screwdriver! I'm not going anywhere without that.'

Karl nodded. 'And I would like to retrieve my sword.'

'And don't forget the whole stopping the evil dwarf thing.' The Doctor added.

'Yes,' Feelia agreed. 'I would like to slay him.'

'Now whoa there,' the Doctor frowned. 'There's going to be no slaying while I'm around, okay? No slaying, no slaughtering, no decapitating, dismembering, dissecting and not even a little bit of scraping. Got that, Thor?'

'I don't like those rules.' Karl frowned.

'Well get used to them.' The Doctor replied. 'Because from here on in, I'm in charge. Now get a move on. There's something moving in my shoe.'