AN: Hi! Thanks for your reviews, as ever, I'm glad your liking this sequel. Today is the last time I can updates until the 24th as I'm going on the tall ships race, so depending on reviews depends on how many chaps I can put up today. I hope you like it though!
Congrats to 'Listening to the Radio' who got last chap's quote right- it was Lao Tzu who originally said that.
Here's this chap's quote:
"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence." ~
Ok, so the Doc has been kidnapped by giant bats reluctant to tell him who they are. Vice versa, he doesn't want to tell them what he is. Meanwhile, Amy is coming to rescue him and Monk Anil is cooler than Jackie Chan. Gyatso is head monk, and Sonam is his sort of apprentice/ adopted son. Gyatso himself is suffering from the indigo chill, and was offered the same goblet as Amy, proving this was the source of the poison. ok?
Enjoy!
Finally the Kelelawar turned back to the Doctor, batlike, feral noses wrinkled and eyes sharp. The leader spoke again.
"We are a specially assigned research team, sent by the Eyrie to try and discover the secret to eternal life. We found this planet and saw the records of a 'holy grail', on their records. We have drawn the conclusion that with the right mixture of ingredients- we can produce the mixture ourselves."
The other space bats shifted their wings, sniffed the air, and scraped the cave's stone floor in their excitement under the dull glow of whatever chemical was being passed through the tubes above their heads to the colony of Kelelawar in hibernation.
The Doctor looked back the way he'd come- at the dull glow which lit on flashes of white fur and leathery wing, and hundreds of enormous bat silhouettes hung motionless.
"Research team eh? So who are they?"
The bats hissed a little. The Doctor smiled.
"Nah- I don't think your 'Eyrie' sent you. I think you're a renegade band who fled from Cantos 7 after being accused of mass murder- after you tried to take over the capital, and are now searching for a way to escape your death penalty once and for all."
A clawed hand grabbed the Doctor's jacket roughly, lifting him off the ground. Another difference between the Kelelwar and Earth bats- apart from size and the capacity for human speech, was that they were essentially humanoid- and so had long, slender, wiry arms as well as their wings.
The Doctor grinned as his feet disconnected with the rock. "So I'm right then?"
In response, several of the bats hissed and flapped their wings, making towards the Doctor with their huge needle teeth bared in feral snarls.
The leader made a high screeching sound and the Doctor screwed up his face as it pierced his sensitive ears. The rest of the Kelelawar fell still.
The leader stepped forwards, its claws scraping the stone. Soon it's long teeth were level with the Doctor's eyes. The Doctor looked inside the creature's mouth with wary apprehension.
"How do you know this?"
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "I told you, I'm the Doctor." He looked over, past the huge vat that dominated the cave, towards one of the bats carrying a clipboard, passing an advanced looking computer monitor.
"Check your scans for any evidence of the Doctor, or a little blue box."
He smiled. The leader of the Kelelawar eyed him for a second before snapping an order. Instantly a space-bat typed in a search query. There was a moment of silence, and then it took off- landing next to the leader and whispering in his he ear- too low for even the Doctor to hear.
The leader's eyes widened and the Doctor smiled. The Kelelawar made a gesture for the other, holding the Doctor, to drop him. The Doctor fell to his hands and knees again, and grimaced at a crack in his shin as he hit the rock.
Hissing with pain, he got to his feet- instantly masking his agony.
The leader stepped forwards. "Tell me what you are!"
He sounded eager, excited, as if he had a idea already.
The Doctor watched him coolly. "You still haven't admitted who you are."
The creature laughed- a hissing, screeching sound almost as bad as the Weeping Angels.
"We are what remains of the Lastralli colony on Cantos 7. We raided the outlying regions as a band and then led an attack on the capital- half of us were killed in that one attack, and the rest hunted. We fled- so far, until finally we discovered this planet."
The creature hissed, gesturing to the enormous cave with its spindly hand. "We will convert the native population into appropriate feed- an easy enough task, considering several of us were once Royal Scientists. Then we will take over this feeble, primitive planet once and for all- and we will discover the key to eternal life. We will have defeated the Eyrie once and for all!"
The other Kelelawar let out a screeching chorus of triumphant cries at that, raising their slender arms. The Doctor watched them as they calmed down and licked his lips nervously. The leader stepped forwards, black eyes gleaming.
"So tell me, Doctor,What. Are. You?"
The Doctor grinned uneasily. "Me? Oh, I'm just a human, see? Arms, legs, all human…stuff."
He held out his arms, putting on his best 'I'm a human and not a Time Lord' expression.
Because when you were making a mixture for eternal life- there was one essential and incredibly rare ingredient which could end your search in seconds.
The blood of a Time Lord.
X
Amy hadn't been afraid of heights until she'd stepped onto the narrow path edging up the side of the cliff. Clinging to the rock she was pressed against, she edged along the last few metres and peered into the pitch black cave which swallowed her entirely.
It was huge- an enormous cavern which seemed to go on forever.
There was the sound of something big moving above her, and Amy looked up, breathing fast. She couldn't see anything.
A warm hand landed on her shoulder, and Amy turned, smiling, expecting for some reason to see the Doctor.
Instead Anil's kind face expressed reassurance, and he didn't seem to begrudge Amy the way her face fell in disappointment as she realized who it was.
The monk smiled sympathetically at her.
"Don't worry Miss Pond, we'll get him back."
Amy nodded- staring at his tanned and wrinkled leathery face, with the empty darkness behind her, and the mountainous oblivion which was her only way back. She thought of the Doctor- taken from her, and barely brushed the idea of never seeing him again...Amy bit back a sob and stopped herself bursting into tears- of panic, fear, worry, frustration...
Instead she simply took a deep breath and turned, marching into the cool darkness of the cave, with Anil catching her when she stumbled over unseen rocks, and Gyatso and Sonam following quietly behind.
X
The Doctor struggled against the straps holding him onto the cold metal table- not bothering to try and move his left leg in case the crack in his shin bone got any worse.
He twisted his head, breathing fast as one of the Kelelwar- wearing a specially molded surgical mask- came over, holding a thin diamond shaped plate like scanner which glowed a very pale blue.
The Doctor twisted and writhed as the device scanned his body- and the radiation it emitted burned his cells and insides. He grit his teeth, trying to pretend not to be too bothered- because a human wouldn't.
Of course the Kelelawar hadn't taken his word for it, and had decided instead to scan him and make their own decision as to exactly what species he originated from.
The Doctor writhed to the left as the scanner passed over the right side of his ribcage.
He was fairly sure when they discovered two hearts, and a respiratory bypass system, they'd figure out he wasn't derived of Homo Sapiens. Hopefully though- as a renegade band without access to racial history, they wouldn't know what species he was by physical attributes. Hopefully.
The scanner stopped and the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. There was a beep and he crack open his eyes to watch the results being taken to the Kelelawar's leader- whose name he'd learned was Grigatri.
There was a chorus of excited hisses and the Doctor leaned back in his bonds, shutting his eyes- exhausted by the pain still washing through his body.
Moments later, a sharp slap made him open his eyes again.
The Doctor frowned, spitting out a little blood where his teeth had caught his cheek and cut it.
"What was that for?"
Grigatri grinned, baring his transparent needle teeth. "You lied to us Doctor. Or should I say…..Time Lord?"
The Doctor sighed. "Yeah. I was worried you were gonna say that."
Grigatri hissed a chuckle and made a motion with his hand. His Hench men untied the Doctor and pulled him none too gently to his feet.
The Time Lord staggered a little- from the increasing weakness of his shin and the pain caused by the scanning, so the Kelelawar were supporting rather than restraining him.
He was dragged roughly to the vat. Cautiously he peered over the rusting metal sides- then wished he hadn't. Beneath a silvery surface lay hundreds of human bodies- with bright blue veins stretching across their skin. The Doctor swallowed a little bile- looking at the tubes from the vat, taking the mixture to the hibernating remnants of the Lastralli colony.
He rolled his eyes at his own stupidity.
"Of course! That's what the poison was for- Haemoglobin is poisonous to you. So you somehow get them to ingest a chemical mixture which converts it into whatever else- hence the blue veins, coughs, fevers. The red blood cells no longer have the capacity to carry oxygen without haemoglobin. They were suffocating!"
The Doctor nodded to himself, the silence of the Kelelwar confirming what he knew to be true as the watched him.
"Yes, of course, then you keep feeding it to the humans till the whole planet is edible- and you keep adding them to this mixture, which you're also using to create your formula for eternal life- which then gets fed directly to the rest of the colony through those tubes."
The Doctor looked up as Grigatri clapped his spindly hands.
"Well done Doctor- you really are a Time Lord." The creature cocked its head to the side. "Of course- I suppose by killing you we'll cause the extinction of your species."
Grigatri smiled a grim, cruel, toothy smile. "Poor Doctor- the very last Time Lord- you're whole species resting on your shoulders- and now you, and they, will die once and for all."
The Doctor said nothing- but his eyes, slate grey with a hint of blue, were cold, sad, and deeply angry. His face remained otherwise impassive- but Grigatri shivered under the condemnation of his glare.
He shook himself. "Get a knife- I want to add this particular ingredient myself."
X
Amy gulped as she and the monks crept beneath the eerily illuminated bodies of the enormous bats, hanging from the roof of the cave, linked to the blue tubes. She caught a glimpse of a white, hairy hand and nodded to herself.
So it had been one of these which had offered her the goblet, the elixir of 'eternal life.' Amy grimaced, hoping her other assumptions were also correct.
After a few more minutes of silently tiptoeing through the half lit tunnel, hearts pounding and sweat cold on their backs- Amy and the others came to a larger opening. The main chamber was dominated by a huge metal vat- by enormous…Space-bats, which moved quickly around, fiddling with computers and writing on clipboards.
A commotion by the vat drew Amy's eyes, and instantly she turned to it, her eyes already having adjusted to the half dark.
She gasped and went to run forwards- stopped only by Anil's strong hands on her shoulders.
"Not yet!" He hissed in her ear, though she could feel the concern in his eyes as he watched the scene unfold before them.
The Doctor, held with his arms behind his back- a spindly hand in his hair pulling his head back and baring his throat, was struggling desperately. Amy quickly noticed the red mark on his face, the way he barely put any weight on his left leg- the way his skin was paler than normal.
She had seconds to take this in though, before another Space-Bat, bigger than the others, took a long, wicked looking saber like object, and held it's gleaming edge to the Doctor's exposed throat.
The Time Lord froze and Amy's hands curled into fists as his nostrils flared and he regarded the blade warily.
As the Space-bat things began to move the Doctor round the vat, so his blood would spill into it, Amy was already on the move- followed by Anil as they crept quickly across the cavern floor, scrambling up the rocks by the opposite side of the vat.
Behind them, Sonam and Gyatso remained in the shelter of the slight outcrop they'd hid behind.
X
The Doctor was breathing heavily. He struggled against the Kelelawar holding him as Grigatri went to line the blade up to his throat again.
The Time Lord kicked one of them with his right leg and elbowed another, swinging his head back to try and head butt one of them. A sharp blow to the stomach- and the sharper crack of two of his ribs breaking as Grigatri swung the metal base of the blade into the Doctor's chest made him bend over double, coughing.
The metal object hit him again, in the stomach, winding him. Yet another blow to the back of his legs brought the Doctor to his knees as the reverberation of the impact shivered through the crack in his shin.
The Doctor was hauled once again to his feet, robbed of the strength to fight back, gasping and sweating. He looked at Grigatri.
"Please. Please don't do this. You said yourself- you'll kill the Time Lords. That's genocide- you don't want that blood on your hands."
Grigatri smiled his toothy, bestial grin, placing the blade against the Doctor's skin, pressing in a little, so a line of blood trickled across the blade. The Doctor grit his teeth.
"I think that's a risk I'm willing to take, Doctor."
Aaaaah! So what's going to happen now? Please review and I'll try and update ASAP, hope you enjoyed it!
Kat