AN: Hi! I'm so sorry this has taken so long, but here we go- first erratic upate. If I miss you out for quotes/prizes please PM me- I'm relying on my lovely reader's integrity ok?
This chap's quote:
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
Ok, so Amy was offered 'eternal life' by a strange creature in Tabo Monastery. The monastery is also suffering from the outbreak of a bizarre plague dubbed the 'Indigo Chill.' The Doctor went to check out the bodies and confirm is suspicions of the disease being in reality poison. However, the body's weren't there and he was carried away by a giant bat- the 'airborne virus'. Ok?
Here we go!
Enjoy!
"It's the same one!" Gyatso's eyes were wide as he stared at the goblet Amy had just put on the table in front of him.
The redhead nodded with grim satisfaction. "Yeah, thought so. Ok, we need to-"
She broke off as there was a chorus of shouts and screams outside, and over it all, echoing but just audible, the Doctor, shouting "Geronimoooooo" and sounding absolutely terrified.
Amy bolted from the room, the goblet clutched tightly in her slender fingers with their bright blue painted nails. Gyatso wasn't far behind as she burst out into the harsh mountain sunlight to see human like figure being whisked away by a creature which looked like a giant grey and white bat.
Amy caught herself, not human like- Time Lord, "we came first…" She smiled to herself at the memory, then spun round to face Gyatso, fire burning through her in fierce determination. "We need to follow him. Is there any way across the valley?"
Gyatso nodded. "A bridge…but it's at least an hours ride away, and I don't know that it's safe…"
Amy felt her stomach drop at the mention of riding- having never ridden a horse, but she nodded. "Ok then- we've got no time to lose, do we?"
X
The Doctor was pretty sure getting carried like dead meat over a himalayan valley by a giant bat like alien was one of the last things he'd ever wished to do. But it would make a pretty good story if he lived.
The Doctor grinned even as the bat creature flew into an enormous cave on the other side of the valley, so big he couldn't even see the edges as he was flown towards it- only darkness.
The Time Lord noticed with relief there was a path leading up to the cavern- probably belonging to Sherpas living in the mountains, though the humans had clearly long since gone.
Maybe there was a chance for someone to come after him- or for him to escape…
Out of the afternoon sunlight, the temperature dropped dramatically, and the Doctor was plunged into near total darkness. He strained his eyes to see and held tight to the things claws as he felt air rushing past him.
Finally, after what felt like forever but what the Time Lord knew to be exactly 8 minutes and 26 seconds, a light- faint and blue like it was filtered through the mountains' icy casings. But that wasn't what it was.
The Doctor surveyed his surroundings as he was flown past. Flown past row after row of sleeping bat-things, linked to tubes which glowed slightly blue, hundreds and hundred of them, and all the tubes leading to one place- one spot, where a huge metal vat sat in the middle of what looked like a construction area, with at least twenty of the bat creatures walking round and monitoring the vat and the tubes- walking hunched with their leathery coal coloured wings folded on their backs.
The Doctor nodded to himself, in a quick, jerky, panicked movement. "Ok. Right then."
He gave a shout as the creature swung him forwards onto the earthy ground before a group of batlike creatures. The Doctor landed on his hands and knees, grazing them. He got up quickly, feeling a slender, spider like hand grab the back of his jacket, and brushed himself off, looking at the Bat-creatures, who stared right back at him.
The alien tried a smile at the other aliens.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor- who are you?"
X
The one advantage of riding a magnificent dappled grey mare was that Amy got to snuggle up to one of Anil's muscular students- who was kind of hot in a martial arts, well built, gorgeous body sort of way.
Amy giggled a little and pressed her face into his rough clothes as he rode the horse at a full out gallop. She was pretty sure he warmed a little beneath the clothes- unused to this sort of attention from a woman.
Amy bit her lip to keep herself from giggling more and held her arms tightly around his hard stomach, truly holding on for dear life- but still loving the thrill of being on top of this huge creature as they raced through the snow- with Gyatso and the young monk Sonam, who'd been their sort of guide, in the lead, and Anil in the rear.
The mountains sped past- ridges of ice and snow and dark scars of rock jutting through, only to be replaced by more of the same. The sky was dark grey- there could have been a storm coming, as the previously sunny day was getting darker by the second.
Amy concentrated on the thought of the Doctor.
They weren't exactly sure they were going the right way- but the bat-thing had headed in the right direction, and Gyatso knew of a huge network of caves on the other side of the valley- called the Caverns of Spirits for fairly obvious reasons.
But what the Sherpas who used to shelter there on occasion had presumed were the dead, rattling their bones and making strange, unearthly noises sounded a lot like the work of an alien bat.
Amy grinned. Her perspective had changed a lot- but in some ways it was the same as it had been ever since she was seven. If something unusual, out of the ordinary, frightening, brilliant, inexplicable happened- she always had the same answer.
Aliens- or the Doctor.
She was beginning to find she was usually right- and she loved it.
Sonam shouted and pointed ahead, turning to check Amy, her rider and Anil had seen it too- the bridge they were supposed to cross, stretching for what seemed forever across the valley. Amy wondered how on Earth they'd got it across in the first place, then felt a sick feeling of butterflies as she saw the way the wood and rope bridge was slippy with ice and trembled in the slightest breeze.
Amy closed her eyes and saw the Doctor's face grinning back at her, only to slip away and be replaced by the silver goblet…Had she made the right choice?
Amy couldn't think about that right now. Instead she felt herself breathe a sigh of relief as they came to a stop and she helped down by a blushing monk, her muscles aching.
She looked at the rickety wooden bridge in apprehension- at how it stretched across to the other side of the valley- at the barely visible grey line- the path to the huge black mouth of the cavern they needed to get to, to find and rescue the Doctor.
Maybe someone else would have trembled, shouted in frustration, worried about how much time there was. But not Amy- instead she turned to Sonam and Gyatso, gave them a small, tight smile and stepped onto the bridge, feeling it give a little beneath her as it took her weight.
She had a plan.
X
The biggest bat-thing stepped forwards, it's claws scratching the stone, it's four black slanted eyes glistening. It opened its mouth- full of thin, sharp, needle like teeth.
"We are the Kelelawar." It's voice was rasping and old. The Doctor's smile widened a little, though his eyes became guarded.
"Yes, I know what you are, I asked who you were- because you're a very long way from Cantos 7."
The creatures shifted in surprise, clicking and hissing at each other, eyes flicking from side to side. The leader spoke again.
"We will tell you who we are if you tell us who and what you are really."
The Doctor smiled. "Well- as to who- I'm the Doctor, just the Doctor- I like to think of myself as this planet's protector." The leader and several other's bridled- their long white fur raising along their backs between their wings. The Doctor noticed.
He kept smiling congenially, shrugging away from the Kelelawar holding him. "As to what- well, lets see who you are first, eh?"
The group of Kelelawar moved away, huddling together, their wings a black leathery wall as they conferred in hissed voices. One stayed with the Doctor- and he grinned up at it.
"Now that's not suspicious, is it?"
X
Amy was about halfway across the bridge when it started to really groan, as Anil stepped on at the other end.
Had she been letting herself give in to her feelings, the Scot would have been a trembling wreck as she stepped carefully onto the next piece of wood, and the next, holding tight onto the frayed rope keeping her from falling into the valley way too far below her.
At least she assumed it was a very long way below her- Amy hadn't actually looked down yet- instead she concentrated on the other side, the two wooden poles holding the bridge, the safe, solid stone and the snow blanketing it.
Breathing deeply, she took another step. The bridge creaked.
Amy closed her eyes for just a second. Took another deep breath. Felt the straining rope beneath her fingers.
I am not going to die here. I am not leaving him alone when I could stay with him longer.
She opened her eyes.
Amy took another step, then another. She was barely metres away from the end when it happened.
When she heard a creaking groan- higher pitched than the others, and a scattering of rocks. When she turned and saw the bridge beginning to fall into the valley- Anil barely a quarter of the way across.
Amy ran the short distance to safe ground, not caring about where she put her weight- throwing herself towards the rocks and bruising her hands and clinging onto a ledge to stop herself falling back.
As quickly as she could she edged along the narrow ledge so Sonam and Gyatso could get onto the ground- the rider was on the other side of the valley with the horses.
But Anil was only halfway.
Amy watched, wide eyed as the bridge seemed to fall in slow motion, Anil sprinting the rest of the way, moving past splintering pieces of wood as if they weren't even there- then running uphill, so fast he was like a cheetah or a mountain tiger, powerfully going further.
But the bridge was falling fast, tumbling into the valley, and even though Anil was three quarters of the way across now he was having to use his arms to pull himself further as he ran. It was like a monkey, and Amy could see his biceps bulging and sweat pouring off him.
Strangely though, Anil's face remained calm. As the other end of the bridge began to fall back, the last part began to fall. Amy, Gyatso and Sonam watched with baited breath.
Then, using the bridge to push up off- Anil jumped.
He curled his muscles, crouched down, and then leapt to the rock- Sonam and Gyatso reaching out to catch him, though he didn't need it.
Breathing heavily, Anil smoothed his robes and looked into the valley as the bridge feel into it like a wooden snake.
"We'll have to find another way back later," Anil said, turning to smile at Amy, who just stared at him in open amazement.
"You are so cooler than Jackie Chan."
Anil blinked and smiled in bemusement. "I don't know who your Jackie Chan is, but thankyou I think?"
Amy shook her head, the fact that she was thousands of metres up on a perilous and narrow goat path momentarily forgotten.
"How did you do that?"
Anil shrugged in bashful amicability, "One of the many advantages of Gun fighting is that you hone your skills in many areas."
Amy blushed a little at that. Maybe she would ask the Doctor to teach her when they'd got out of here.
She looked up, past the outcrops of rock and ice to the huge, black, gaping hole in the side of the mountain where they were head, then back to Sonam, Gyatso and Anil.
It was time for her plan. Or as the Doctor would have said- 'the thing'. It was a particularly awesome 'thing'- with a distinct hint of Pond.
Ooooooh, so, what now?
And yeah- but come on, monks who know martial arts are so cool! Haha, couldn't resist. And who are this group of Kelelawar? Renegades? Spies? Invaders? And why is the Doctor reluctant to reveal what he is?
I'll try and update soon, not to would be cruel, and I really hope your still enjoying this fic. Please please keep the reviews coming, I'm ill and on RAF adventure training, so I seriously need the encouragement.
Thanks for reading anyway, I hope you continue to do so!
Kat