Alien Games Ch. 2
Summary: Cameron Mitchell didn't believen in aliens, but when he was ten years old a blue box appeared in his backyard. These are his adventures though time and space. Part of the Sentinels 'verse.
Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate or Doctor Who
Words: 2,378
Chapter Two
We went to prehistoric Earth and ever since then I hated dinosaurs. At least four different species of carnivores had tried to eat us, and the T-Rex, which were a whole lot bigger than I'd ever expected hadn't been the worst. No, it was those little raptors that sped though the forests at a pace faster than what we could run. They'd hurt the Doctor more than once, bit deeply into his flesh and nearly ripped him to pieces. He wouldn't have escaped if it weren't for the sonic screwdriver, which hurt their ears so bad it made them run, crying out in pain.
When I returned home after our travels, I threw every single dinosaur toy I had out, stole a match from above the counter tops and set the T-Rex on fire. Mom could never figure out why I'd suddenly started to hate dinosaurs, watched me carefully for a long time after the fire incident, afraid I'd start setting other things on fire too. I did set one other thing on fire after that, but it was Amy Vandenburg's hair, it was an accident and no one ever found out about it(thankfully).
He changed appearances that day, went from being a curly brown haired man with grey eyes to having short very dark hair and blue eyes. His personality had immediately changed as well, I think something about dying in front of a young child had changed him. This was the version of The Doctor that I got to know the best though, this was the one I loved most of all. He couldn't remember everything either. It terrified me, but as the hours passed, and we stayed stranded on prehistoric Earth he became use to his new self, and everything went back to normal.
He was more enthusiastic about taking me places with this new personality. I didn't realize that about this one until I was much older. He took me hundreds of places, most of which I can't even remember now. I just remember small little details about some of the lesser planets. One had been a huge beach, with luxury resorts built on the higher, more stable ground. It was a tourist planet, a very beautiful one. Another had been on a moon and the residents were these green squid people. They were apparently friends of the Doctor, though he had to convince them that he was The Doctor.
There are four specific adventures, aside from the Dinosaur incident, that stand out in my mind even until this day. Each one changed me in some way, each one had me looking at the Doctor more and more as a father figure, and each one would later come back to bite me in the future.
The first of these adventures happened about a month into our travels. The Doctor took me to the planet Delora. It was an Earth emulated planet though it seemed to look nothing like Earth at all. The residence were mostly human, with some other species ranging from blowfishes to astral human like squids, cat people and creatures that looked exactly like Minotarus.
I liked the astral people, they were a beautiful blue and green, floated and you could sorta see what was in them. I never did get the name of their race, they never spoke it and The Doctor never told me. He did tell me that the earlier generations of their race use to eat human hearts, but evolution made it so that they didn't require such a thing anymore. This pleased me because the friend I made there, Aeryan, was one of these astral people.
The Doctor explained to me that the cat people ran the hospital and called themselves the Sisters of Plentitude. However I though that they were creepy, I just never told him. There was something about them that set me off, I don't know why because they've never done anything to me. I only briefly saw them when passing them by on the road. But I couldn't stand them, and every time they came near me I shied away from them, closer to the Doctor.
We stayed clear of the blowfishes as often as possible. They were a sporadic race, prone to getting into fights often and the Doctor didn't want to get in the middle of one. I didn't either since they carried several weapons each, most notably guns. There was one incident with a blowfish though. It scared me for life and I could never bring myself to eat any type of fish again.
We'd been walking down the Strip, the main street of the Deloran city Madrid. The Doctor was pointing out many of the technologies that humans would learn to create and explaining them to me is as simplest terms possible. One of the devices looked like an old fashioned music box, except that it was actually an antique holographic projector. The Doctor had taken out his sonic screwdriver and was taking it apart to show me the inner workings when, through the window of a restaurant across the street I saw a server put down a plate in front of two of the blowfish men. It was the head of another blowfish, and they were sharing it between the two of them.
The Doctor whisked me away from there as fast as possible, but the damage had been done. I had nightmares after it, curled up in The Doctor's leather coat. Sometimes it would be my head they were eating, other times it would be the Doctor's. After a nightmare the Doctor would lie in bed with me, hold me as I curled into his chest, and even though he didn't sleep he was with me the entire rest of the night.
The Minotaurs stood like full humans with bison heads, curling horns and a mix of human hands and hooves. Their feet were hoofed and though they wore pants I wasn't sure if they were needed. They were completely covered in fur, least I think they were. The males wore no shirt, but the females did. We didn't really talk to many Minotaurs as they tended to stay in certain sections of the city and not the sections we were in.
When I met Aeryan, he was the first of the astral people I'd seen. I ended up staring at him, awed by his difference and beauty. When he noticed me, he thought I was crazy, couldn't understand why a small human boy would be staring at him like that.
"Who are you?" Aeryan asked me.
I looked at him curiously, "I'm Cameron."
Aeryan nodded, "Why do you look at me like that? Have you not seen one of my race before?"
I shook my head, "We just got here. What's your name?"
"I am Aeryan, and what do you mean you just got here? My race populates every human planet."
That's when the Doctor entered our conversation, "Not really, least not where's he from. But that doesn’t really matter. I'm The Doctor."
"Doctor who?" Aeryan asked confused.
I giggled at that. Yes, I can admit I giggled when I was younger. I didn't do so much, but there were the odd times I did.
"Oh, just the Doctor. It's my name." I loved it when the Doctor had to explain his name. No one seemed to get it, ever. I wonder if I was the only one to take his name in stride like that and not question it.
Aeryan was perplexed but let it be. I soon found out that he was fifteen and the son of one of the wealthier people in Madrid. He offered to show us around, and the Doctor graciously accepted. Aeryan took us all over Madrid, showed us the historical sights, most of which I've forgotten now and pointed out some of the better established places.
Aeryan and I got along really well, far better than I expected since I hadn't made many other alien friends on our travels. It's probably because I was so young, and Aeryan was the first person we'd met who was close to my age. I was happy to have someone to finally talk to like they might actually care to listen.
We stayed on Delora for three days. We traveled with Aeryan most of the time, until the third day when things went down hill. We were eating breakfast when Aeryan's older brother Darien appeared. I was immediately scared of him, he looked at me as if I was a meal. I didn't found out until later that day that a meal was exactly what I was to him.
The Doctor had to go get some replacement parts that would allow him to fix a few parts of the TARDIS, not the chameleon circuit though, he didn't want to fix that, so he left me with Aeryan and Darien. He thought that I'd be safe, and so had I. Aeryan decided to take us down to one of the private parks reserved for people his high positions like his parents. I didn't think anything of it, I liked that it was empty when we got there because it meant we could be anywhere we want, do anything we wanted and not be a bother to anyone.
We played a few games together, ran around and then collapsed in a clearing that had been set up for such a thing. Aeryan sat beside me, Darien across from me. I shied away from him, closer to Aeryan. That's when he betrayed me. He grabbed me, pinned my arms to my side and covered my mouth. I struggled, kicked but he was so much more stronger than I. He held me pinned to him as Darien crawled closer to me.
I moved my head, and Aeryan released my mouth.
"Why?" I asked. I couldn't understand what was happening or why. I wanted to know what was going to happen to me.
It was Darien that answered me, "Has your friend not told you about our preferred meal? Human hearts taste so, so good and gives us longer life. The younger the bearer of the heart is, the more life it gives to us." He was right in front of me now, caressing my face. His had moved to my chest, right above my heart, "Your heart will give me almost a hundred years worth of life."
"Why me? Aeryan, I thought we were friends!" I cried. I didn't want to die. I wondered where the Doctor was, why he wouldn't save me.
Aeryan laughed, "You're a good kid Cameron, and though I guess I consider you a friend, I'm loyal to family more that I am to you."
Darien's face came forward, pressed against the fabric of my shirt. I froze, freaked out by what he was doing because I had no clue why he was doing it. I whimpered, terrified that I would be dying here, so far away from home. Where was the Doctor?
I closed my eyes and wished for things to be over quickly. I didn't want it to be painful, and I never want my death to be painful.
"It was nice knowing you Cameron," Darien said.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
My eyes snapped open and I saw the Doctor standing behind Darien, sonic screwdriver out and pointed at him. I was relieved but still terrified. Even at that age I knew the sonic screwdriver wasn't a weapon at all. It was two against one if it came down to a fight.
Darien stood up and turned around to face the Doctor. "And what will you do to me if I don't Doctor? Kill me?"
"I don’t kill people," the Doctor said, "However you don't know what it means to come up against me."
Darien laughed, "Oh no Doctor, it is you who don’t know what you're up against."
The Doctor blinked slowly, calmly and with a smirk. He pointed the sonic screwdriver at a tree and severed it, causing it to fall. I watched in horror as the falling tree was aimed right fore Aeryan and I. Aeryan rolled us out of the way.
"What the hell are you doing?" Darien yelled. "Are you insane? I thought you were here to save the boy!"
Aeryan's hold on me had loosened, so I ran, round the tree and straight to the Doctor. But Darien blocked my way. When he saw me he smiled and lunged, but the Doctor severed another tree and he had to dodge it. I did too as it happened to be, and we ended up on opposite sides of the tree. The Doctor grabbed me and we ran. He severed a few more trees to keep them from keeping up and we went straight back to the TARDIS.
"I thought you told me they didn't eat hearts anymore?" I asked him as soon as we'd entered the TARDIS. I went into one of the corners, sat down and brought my knees up to my chest.
The Doctor looked at me for a moment, then came and knelt before me, "I thought they didn't. I'm sorry I was wrong, I know Aeryan was your friend."
I looked up at him, "Why do they eat hearts?" I hadn't asked him before, I hadn't wanted to know because it disgusted me. Now I did, now I wanted to know why Aeryan betrayed me.
The Doctor sighed, "Before their evolutionary change, it's what kept them alive. They don't needed it now, however..." he trailed off lost in thought. "It's possible that by eating a human heart as they are now it'll extend their life. I can't be sure but if it's true it's quite…" he paused suddenly, as if startled. He took his coat off and wrapped it around me before going to the consoles of the ship.
I didn't know why he suddenly stopped himself at the time, but now I know it was to spare my ears from how ingenious he thought it was. No matter how destructive or wrong something is, if it's an amazing piece of development, he always thought it was brilliant. He was just that kind of a person.
Chapter Three
Sentinels Guide