Fic: Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Dalek
Title: Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Dalek
Author: Refreshingbeverage/Occipitallobe
Rating: FRK+
Genre: Crack/Humor/Fantasy
Fandom: Doctor Who/Little Red Riding Hood
Characters: Little Red Riding Hood, Dalek, the Doctor, OC
Word Count: 3327
Summary: The children's story, but with a Dalek.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Dalek
Once upon a time in the Epsilon quadrant on the planet Crathis, there was a young girl who wore a bright red cape and hood. Nearly everyone on Crathis wore a cape and hood, as their planet did not have its own star and it was very cold. But this particular little girl’s cape and hood were red, so everyone called her Little Red Riding Hood.
As it so happened, this girl’s grandmother was falling ill. Little Red Riding Hood’s mother couldn’t make the half-day’s journey across the purple Crathisian forest to take care of her, which saddened Little Red very much.
“Mother,” she said, “Don’t worry. I can walk through the forest to Grandmother’s house.”
“Are you sure?” her mother asked. Little Red was young and hadn’t made the long trek across the purple woods before. “It’s a very long walk.”
“But the path is straight, I know it well. Please, mother, let me visit Grandmother.”
After some thought, Little Red’s mother agreed. She packed some bread, a pomegranate from New Tijx City, and a bottle of Klorpian whiskey - for the chills and also something that goes well with the meat from the wild visop.
“Now remember,” said Little Red’s mother, “I want you home by the sixth turn of the second moon and not a moment later. If the Snow Tsunami comes, hide under the nearest purple lok tree until it passes. Stay on the path. And - most importantly- I don’t want you talking to any strangers between here and Grandmother’s house.”
Little Red nodded. They were all the standard motherly warnings. “Alright, Mother.”
“And I especially don’t want you talking to strangers that are shaped like pepper pots.”
“I won’t, Mother.”
Little Red’s mother smiled warmly as she leaned down to kiss her daughter on the top of her hood. “I know I sound like I worry too much, but it’s only because I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And so, Little Red walked out into the purple Crathisian forest. Her path was lined with the florescent glow of the blue mushrooms. When her mother first took her into the forest, she showed her the mushrooms and made a stew out of them. There is nothing as symbolic a comfort food on Crathis as the comforting bioluminescence of wild mushroom stew.
Surrounding her were the thousands of purple lok trees that made up the forest. The bases of their trunks were thick and umbrella-like, creating a ready-made den for the docile visop. When Little Red’s mother usually had market days - such as this one- Little Red would wander out to the rim of the forest and hide under the trunks of the lok trees. There, she would play with the visop, petting its thick fur and taking care of its speckled eggs.
Little Red hummed to herself as she walked along. Nobody was on the path that day, which meant that everyone had already walked it to go to the market. She enjoyed her solitude and bounced along the path without worrying about somebody seeing her be foolish. Her house was already lost behind the thick blue and purple leaves when she heard a strange voice a little ways off the path.
“Assistance. Assistance. Hoverskirt malfunction.”
Curious, Little Red stood in the middle of the path, looking out towards the source of the voice. She couldn’t see who was calling for help, and she didn’t want to leave the path. But surely, she thought, surely her mother would understand if she talked to a stranger if a stranger was in trouble and needed her help.
“What’s wrong?” she called out into the woods.
“Energy cells damaged on impact. Self-repair commands failing to initiate. Hoverskirt malfunction. Assistance. Assistance! Must perform orders!”
Little Red didn’t understand most of that, but she was still polite. “Can I help you?”
“Must be upright! Can’t perform orders on back!”
“You fell and need help getting up?”
“Daleks need no help from humans! Daleks are superior! Superior!”
Little Red put her hands on her hips. “Well, Mr. Dalek, I wish you would make up your mind. Do you want help or not?”
The voice was silent for a while before timidly answering. “Assistance.”
But now that she knew that Mr. Dalek was asking for her help, Little Red didn’t know what to do. Her mother told her to stay on the path, but she also told her not to talk to strangers. But if she left the path to help someone, even a stranger, her mother would be very proud of her when she hears of it. Then Little Red could make more trips through the purple forest to visit her Grandmother. So, carefully, she set the basket of bread, pomegranate, and whiskey down on the side of the path and stepped over the mushrooms to help Mr. Dalek.
When she finally saw him, she froze. In the middle of a large crater was Mr. Dalek, who was shaped just like a pepper pot. His gunstick and plunger were sticking straight up in the air, moving as he was still struggling to get up on his own. Looking up, Little Red saw a distinct clearing in the tree tops, like he had fallen from the sky. Mr. Dalek’s eyestalk swiveled to look at her, his lens glowing with a saddened and helpless hue.
“There are no responses to my distress call,” he cried out mournfully. “Why? Why did they abandon me?! I am a good Dalek! I am a soldier!”
“Why of course you’re a good Dalek,” Little Red comforted. “Here, let me help you up.”
Before he could respond, Little Red had walked on over to him and took a good grip on his plunger. With a solid tug, he slowly began to move upright. She grunted with the effort, as Mr. Dalek was very heavy. But after several minutes of pushing and pulling and straining on both parts, Mr. Dalek stood upright and finally got to have a good look around the forest.
“There,” Little Red chirped. “You can go home now.”
He looked up at the treetops he fell through. “My only home has forgotten me!”
“Oh. Well, you can come with me to my Grandmother’s house.”
Mr. Dalek’s eyestalk swiveled down to Little Red, missing the bridge of her nose by only a few inches. “‘Grandmother’?”
“Yes, she lives in the woods and I’m bringing her some food because she’s sick. Let me show you the path.”
Little Red led Mr. Dalek to the path, being polite and not saying anything when his hoverskirt crushed a few mushrooms. They made their way down the path in silence for a while until Mr. Dalek spoke up.
“You say your grandmother has an illness?”
Little Red nodded.
“And she lives in the woods?”
She nodded again.
“Then perhaps she would like some flowers. Humans have a strong attraction to some specific breeds of monocots, such as those that grow off the path.”
Little Red furrowed her brow in thought. “Well, Grandmother does like flowers. Perhaps I can pick her some. That’s a good idea, Mr. Dalek.”
“Because the Dalek mind is superior!”
Little Red said farewell to Mr. Dalek, leaving the path again to find some of the white and blue flowers her grandmother loved so much as Mr. Dalek continued on farther into the woods. She didn’t understand why everyone was warned about strangers who look like pepper pots. Mr. Dalek seemed very nice, thinking of her grandmother like that. She took her time, picking only the most beautiful of flowers for her grandmother, taking her time to arrange them in the basket with the food.
By the time Little Red got to her grandmother’s house, she was very tired and hoped that her grandmother wouldn’t mind if she went to sleep for a little while. Picking the best flowers takes up much more energy than picking just any old flowers. But it was worth it if it meant that she could carry the prettiest flowers into her grandmother’s house.
She knocked on the door and slowly entered. “Grandmother,” she called out. “I came to bring you some food.”
There wasn’t any answer, so Little Red wandered into the dark house, calling out for her grandmother. She went room by room until she finally ended up in the bedroom. There her grandmother sat in her night at the window in her cap under a thick handmade quilt.
She squinted at the figure at the window, not being able to see anything very clearly in the dark. “Grandmother? Is that you?”
The figure hesitated before saying, “Your grandmother-”
“Grandmother, what a big eyestalk you have.”
“It is superior for seeing!”
Little Red took a step closer. “And Grandmother, what a big plunger you have.”
“You will find it superior for holding!”
Her eyes widened. “And Grandmother! What a big gunstick you have!”
The eye glowed a fierce blue as it swiveled to look right at her. “The better to exterminate! Exterminate! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!” There was a blinding flash and Little Red was gone. “Daleks reign supreme! Supreme!”
Meanwhile, back at the crater Little Red found Mr. Dalek in, there was a loud groan that came out of the wind. For a moment, the only thing audible was the sound of time grinding coarsely against itself. Then a faint light appeared in the forest, followed by the slow formation of a deep blue police box. The forest was completely still as the materialized box slowly settled into the cold ground beneath it. A split-second later, a thin man in a brown suit with messy dark hair stepped out, only to quickly rush back in and emerge a moment later with a heavy coat.
A voice came from within. “I thought we were going to Shan Shen.”
“The TARDIS wanted us to come here,” the man with the messy brown hair answered as he looked around. “We picked up a distress call.” His slightly askew eyes settled on the crater. Kneeling down, he pulled a device out of his pocket and pointed it at the ground. It whistled softly for a few moments before the man turned it off and returned it. “But whatever sent it is gone now. Either it was taken away or left on its own.”
“Great. Can we go to Shan Shen now?” There was no response. “Doctor?”
“Not yet.” The Doctor surveyed the scene a little longer, seeing a crudely made aisle through the foliage up to the main path.
The voice from the police box stepped out. He was a tall and muscular man with a large, prickly beard. “I don’t know why you listen to that thing,” he said, more to the air than anything else. “It does this all the time, why can’t you just get it fixed?”
The Doctor spun around on his heel and glared back at the much larger man who was now approaching him. “Butch, the TARDIS is a living entity. She has had some problems in the past, but this is not one I care to fix. It would be like ‘correcting’ someone’s personality, I can’t do that.”
“‘She’?” Butch raised an eyebrow. “It’s a big wooden… thing. If I had a TARthingy, mine would be the manly. You just need to drop the whole King of England thing. You’re not English; you’re from some planet thing. Last of your species or something like that? That’s an easy fix, by the way, if you know what I mean.”
The Doctor turned away before he could see Butch’s thrusting routine again. It was true, he was the last of the Time Lords, but after The Last Great Time War, he wasn’t sure if his race was one that should survive. He didn’t want to be responsible for a new age of Time Lords, there was too much responsibility in it and, if they took too much after him, it might signal the end of the universe. Too much power.
But he never anticipated Butch to ever take this into consideration.
It was lonely traveling space and time, so the Doctor often found a human companion to bring with him. He was fond of the Humans, thinking them very heartfelt and driven at the best of times. At the worst, they could be almost as bad as the Time Lords. He has had many companions over the centuries, but Butch had to be the most infuriating. He was a lumberjack from the American Rockies who stowed away in the TARDIS one day when the Doctor went to the deep woods for a short vacation from his usual diplomatic travels. He was already halfway across the galaxy and 500 years in the future when he found Butch in the TARDIS’s swimming pool. They had been traveling together for two weeks Earth time and the Doctor had put a lot of energy into trying to get rid of him as humanely as possible.
“C’mon, Doc. Chicks dig that ‘dying’ crap.” Butch stopped when he saw the Doctor bend over and pick up one of the blue mushrooms. “What the hell is that?”
“Delicious, for one thing. We must be on Crathis. Anyways, somebody or something crushed these on their way back onto the path.” He looked closely at the ground. “You can even see what direction it went. Come on.”
The Doctor took off running down the path. He wasn’t sure if anything was in any real danger, he just liked running. It helped him think. Unfortunately, Butch has the bad habit of interpreting this action as in invitation to race. Butch tore down the delicate path like a steam engine. Sighing, the Doctor picked up the pace, making sure Butch was within a good shouting distance in case they needed to stop. He didn’t like Butch, but he also didn’t want to be responsible for Butch freezing to death when the Snow Tsunami comes along.
Eventually, Butch now a figure that threatened be lost in the trees in the distance, the Doctor came across a modest house not too far off the path. The tracks he was following - thankfully never completely lost under Butch’s heavy footprints- turned to the house. He called for Butch to stop. Thankfully, he did and started coming back. The Doctor wasn’t interested in sending out a search party to find the idiot.
“I won.” Butch said as he came back to the Doctor. Butch’s face was a bright red, thick veins protruded from his neck and on his forehead from the energy he pretended he wasn’t exerting.
“Very good. Let’s go inside.”
“I can break the door down for you,” Butch volunteered, flexing slightly. “Give it the old patented ‘Butch Shoulder.’ Should make short work of it.”
“It’s open.”
A little disappointed, Butch followed the Doctor into the house. The doctor went to the light switch and pulled out the device from his pocket. It whistled again.
“And what’s that thing you keep playing with? Some sort of vibrator? Or some sort of flashlight? Or some sort of vibrator/flashlight? That’s messed up. Are all aliens that kinky? You don’t lay eggs, do you?”
“It’s a screwdriver. It’s a sonic screwdriver, okay?” If he told Butch once, he told him a thousand times. “It’s the Mark V model of the sonic screwdriver. Do you have any more questions you want me to answer again?”
“Okay okay, geez. You English aliens sure are sensitive.” He leaned against the door frame as the Doctor made the lights turn on. “So it’s just a screwdriver?”
“It’s a sonic screwdriver.”
“Whatever. Why don’t you carry a gun?”
“Shh!”
The Doctor led Butch deep into the house, freezing when he heard a quiet whirring. From out of the corner of his eye, he saw a faint blue light. He turned.
“Doctor.”
Mr. Dalek rolled out of the room, its eyestalk trained on the Doctor. The Doctor backed up against the wall, his grip on the sonic screwdriver tightening.
“Doctor,” he repeated. “I am a good Dalek. They will take me back. Exterminate the Doctor! Daleks are-”
“BA HA HA HA HA!”
The Doctor and the Dalek turned to Butch, who was down the hall and laughing hysterically.
“What are you laughing at?” The Doctor and the Dalek asked simultaneously, only to glare at each other for doing so.
Butch laughed again, staggering over to the two and trying not to fall over laughing. “YOU,” he said to the Dalek. “YOU are going to kill HIM? With what? Your little plunger?”
“Butch,” the Doctor warned. “Stop.”
“But he’s a little guy. Look at him.” Butch gave the Dalek a good shove and made him move a few feet back.
“You are not to touch a Dalek! Daleks are not to be-”
He was pushed again.
“You will be exterminated if you-”
Butch laughed and pushed him again. “I wonder what would happen if he goes down a flight of sta-”
There was a bright flash of light and Butch was gone. The Dalek looked to the Doctor, expecting to see significantly more sympathy than what the Doctor expressed at seeing his companion be vaporized.
“You cannot revive him, Doctor,” the Dalek said.
“I’ve accepted this.” The Doctor took a little step back as the Dalek trained his gunstick on him. “Why did they drop you on this planet?”
“They gave no reason. They don’t need a reason, it’s clear why. They thought I wasn’t a good Dalek! But I’ll show them. I am a true Dalek! And the Daleks will be known for exterminating the Doctor!”
He swallowed hard. “I-”
A loud crash nearly stopped both the Doctor’s hearts. There was a loud cry and a blur of green and silver before the Dalek lay on the floor, his eyestalk mutilated and lying several yards away from his body. Standing above him was Butch, carrying a large axe and looking quite red.
The Doctor stared at him. “What the hell just happened?”
“This metal bastard teleported me to a shed with an old lady and some kid! I’ll show him what happens when you teleport me without permission!”
“But that wasn’t supposed to teleport you, Butch. It was supposed to kill you.”
Butch was unfazed as he looked back down at the Dalek, whose gunstick and plunger moved around helplessly.
“No!” it cried. “The fall! Malfunction! I am defective! I’m a bad Dalek! A bad Dalek!!”
Butch looked up to the Doctor. “What now?”
The Dalek flailed. “KILL ME!”
Butch raised the axe, but the Doctor stopped him. “Don’t.” He looked down at the writhing metal mass at his feet. “He can’t hurt anyone now. The Daleks won’t want him back. Let’s just drag him back to the woods. I’ll check on the old woman and child.”
The Dalek cried as Butch picked him up and carried him out the door and into the purple forest. The Doctor led the old woman and Little Red back into the house. He gently wiped Little Red’s tears away as she told him what happened.
“I shouldn’t have talked to Mr. Dalek,” she cried. “Mother told me not to talk to strangers shaped like pepper pots.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he comforted. “Nobody was hurt. Besides.” He knelt down in front of her. “It was kind of exciting, wasn’t it?”
A little smile. “Yeah.”
“Just be careful, not all Daleks are as harmless as this one was. You were lucky.”
“I won’t help any more of them.”
“Good girl.”
He made sure they were safe in the house before he walked back onto the path and met up with Butch.
“Can we go to Shan Shen now?”
“Sure.”
The two walked down the path towards the TARDIS.
“You thought that little guy killed me?” Butch asked, breaking the silence
“I was afraid so, yeah.”
“You were going to avenge me, right?”
The Doctor hesitated. “Sure.”
Author: Refreshingbeverage/Occipitallobe
Rating: FRK+
Genre: Crack/Humor/Fantasy
Fandom: Doctor Who/Little Red Riding Hood
Characters: Little Red Riding Hood, Dalek, the Doctor, OC
Word Count: 3327
Summary: The children's story, but with a Dalek.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Dalek
Once upon a time in the Epsilon quadrant on the planet Crathis, there was a young girl who wore a bright red cape and hood. Nearly everyone on Crathis wore a cape and hood, as their planet did not have its own star and it was very cold. But this particular little girl’s cape and hood were red, so everyone called her Little Red Riding Hood.
As it so happened, this girl’s grandmother was falling ill. Little Red Riding Hood’s mother couldn’t make the half-day’s journey across the purple Crathisian forest to take care of her, which saddened Little Red very much.
“Mother,” she said, “Don’t worry. I can walk through the forest to Grandmother’s house.”
“Are you sure?” her mother asked. Little Red was young and hadn’t made the long trek across the purple woods before. “It’s a very long walk.”
“But the path is straight, I know it well. Please, mother, let me visit Grandmother.”
After some thought, Little Red’s mother agreed. She packed some bread, a pomegranate from New Tijx City, and a bottle of Klorpian whiskey - for the chills and also something that goes well with the meat from the wild visop.
“Now remember,” said Little Red’s mother, “I want you home by the sixth turn of the second moon and not a moment later. If the Snow Tsunami comes, hide under the nearest purple lok tree until it passes. Stay on the path. And - most importantly- I don’t want you talking to any strangers between here and Grandmother’s house.”
Little Red nodded. They were all the standard motherly warnings. “Alright, Mother.”
“And I especially don’t want you talking to strangers that are shaped like pepper pots.”
“I won’t, Mother.”
Little Red’s mother smiled warmly as she leaned down to kiss her daughter on the top of her hood. “I know I sound like I worry too much, but it’s only because I love you.”
“I love you too.”
And so, Little Red walked out into the purple Crathisian forest. Her path was lined with the florescent glow of the blue mushrooms. When her mother first took her into the forest, she showed her the mushrooms and made a stew out of them. There is nothing as symbolic a comfort food on Crathis as the comforting bioluminescence of wild mushroom stew.
Surrounding her were the thousands of purple lok trees that made up the forest. The bases of their trunks were thick and umbrella-like, creating a ready-made den for the docile visop. When Little Red’s mother usually had market days - such as this one- Little Red would wander out to the rim of the forest and hide under the trunks of the lok trees. There, she would play with the visop, petting its thick fur and taking care of its speckled eggs.
Little Red hummed to herself as she walked along. Nobody was on the path that day, which meant that everyone had already walked it to go to the market. She enjoyed her solitude and bounced along the path without worrying about somebody seeing her be foolish. Her house was already lost behind the thick blue and purple leaves when she heard a strange voice a little ways off the path.
“Assistance. Assistance. Hoverskirt malfunction.”
Curious, Little Red stood in the middle of the path, looking out towards the source of the voice. She couldn’t see who was calling for help, and she didn’t want to leave the path. But surely, she thought, surely her mother would understand if she talked to a stranger if a stranger was in trouble and needed her help.
“What’s wrong?” she called out into the woods.
“Energy cells damaged on impact. Self-repair commands failing to initiate. Hoverskirt malfunction. Assistance. Assistance! Must perform orders!”
Little Red didn’t understand most of that, but she was still polite. “Can I help you?”
“Must be upright! Can’t perform orders on back!”
“You fell and need help getting up?”
“Daleks need no help from humans! Daleks are superior! Superior!”
Little Red put her hands on her hips. “Well, Mr. Dalek, I wish you would make up your mind. Do you want help or not?”
The voice was silent for a while before timidly answering. “Assistance.”
But now that she knew that Mr. Dalek was asking for her help, Little Red didn’t know what to do. Her mother told her to stay on the path, but she also told her not to talk to strangers. But if she left the path to help someone, even a stranger, her mother would be very proud of her when she hears of it. Then Little Red could make more trips through the purple forest to visit her Grandmother. So, carefully, she set the basket of bread, pomegranate, and whiskey down on the side of the path and stepped over the mushrooms to help Mr. Dalek.
When she finally saw him, she froze. In the middle of a large crater was Mr. Dalek, who was shaped just like a pepper pot. His gunstick and plunger were sticking straight up in the air, moving as he was still struggling to get up on his own. Looking up, Little Red saw a distinct clearing in the tree tops, like he had fallen from the sky. Mr. Dalek’s eyestalk swiveled to look at her, his lens glowing with a saddened and helpless hue.
“There are no responses to my distress call,” he cried out mournfully. “Why? Why did they abandon me?! I am a good Dalek! I am a soldier!”
“Why of course you’re a good Dalek,” Little Red comforted. “Here, let me help you up.”
Before he could respond, Little Red had walked on over to him and took a good grip on his plunger. With a solid tug, he slowly began to move upright. She grunted with the effort, as Mr. Dalek was very heavy. But after several minutes of pushing and pulling and straining on both parts, Mr. Dalek stood upright and finally got to have a good look around the forest.
“There,” Little Red chirped. “You can go home now.”
He looked up at the treetops he fell through. “My only home has forgotten me!”
“Oh. Well, you can come with me to my Grandmother’s house.”
Mr. Dalek’s eyestalk swiveled down to Little Red, missing the bridge of her nose by only a few inches. “‘Grandmother’?”
“Yes, she lives in the woods and I’m bringing her some food because she’s sick. Let me show you the path.”
Little Red led Mr. Dalek to the path, being polite and not saying anything when his hoverskirt crushed a few mushrooms. They made their way down the path in silence for a while until Mr. Dalek spoke up.
“You say your grandmother has an illness?”
Little Red nodded.
“And she lives in the woods?”
She nodded again.
“Then perhaps she would like some flowers. Humans have a strong attraction to some specific breeds of monocots, such as those that grow off the path.”
Little Red furrowed her brow in thought. “Well, Grandmother does like flowers. Perhaps I can pick her some. That’s a good idea, Mr. Dalek.”
“Because the Dalek mind is superior!”
Little Red said farewell to Mr. Dalek, leaving the path again to find some of the white and blue flowers her grandmother loved so much as Mr. Dalek continued on farther into the woods. She didn’t understand why everyone was warned about strangers who look like pepper pots. Mr. Dalek seemed very nice, thinking of her grandmother like that. She took her time, picking only the most beautiful of flowers for her grandmother, taking her time to arrange them in the basket with the food.
By the time Little Red got to her grandmother’s house, she was very tired and hoped that her grandmother wouldn’t mind if she went to sleep for a little while. Picking the best flowers takes up much more energy than picking just any old flowers. But it was worth it if it meant that she could carry the prettiest flowers into her grandmother’s house.
She knocked on the door and slowly entered. “Grandmother,” she called out. “I came to bring you some food.”
There wasn’t any answer, so Little Red wandered into the dark house, calling out for her grandmother. She went room by room until she finally ended up in the bedroom. There her grandmother sat in her night at the window in her cap under a thick handmade quilt.
She squinted at the figure at the window, not being able to see anything very clearly in the dark. “Grandmother? Is that you?”
The figure hesitated before saying, “Your grandmother-”
“Grandmother, what a big eyestalk you have.”
“It is superior for seeing!”
Little Red took a step closer. “And Grandmother, what a big plunger you have.”
“You will find it superior for holding!”
Her eyes widened. “And Grandmother! What a big gunstick you have!”
The eye glowed a fierce blue as it swiveled to look right at her. “The better to exterminate! Exterminate! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!” There was a blinding flash and Little Red was gone. “Daleks reign supreme! Supreme!”
Meanwhile, back at the crater Little Red found Mr. Dalek in, there was a loud groan that came out of the wind. For a moment, the only thing audible was the sound of time grinding coarsely against itself. Then a faint light appeared in the forest, followed by the slow formation of a deep blue police box. The forest was completely still as the materialized box slowly settled into the cold ground beneath it. A split-second later, a thin man in a brown suit with messy dark hair stepped out, only to quickly rush back in and emerge a moment later with a heavy coat.
A voice came from within. “I thought we were going to Shan Shen.”
“The TARDIS wanted us to come here,” the man with the messy brown hair answered as he looked around. “We picked up a distress call.” His slightly askew eyes settled on the crater. Kneeling down, he pulled a device out of his pocket and pointed it at the ground. It whistled softly for a few moments before the man turned it off and returned it. “But whatever sent it is gone now. Either it was taken away or left on its own.”
“Great. Can we go to Shan Shen now?” There was no response. “Doctor?”
“Not yet.” The Doctor surveyed the scene a little longer, seeing a crudely made aisle through the foliage up to the main path.
The voice from the police box stepped out. He was a tall and muscular man with a large, prickly beard. “I don’t know why you listen to that thing,” he said, more to the air than anything else. “It does this all the time, why can’t you just get it fixed?”
The Doctor spun around on his heel and glared back at the much larger man who was now approaching him. “Butch, the TARDIS is a living entity. She has had some problems in the past, but this is not one I care to fix. It would be like ‘correcting’ someone’s personality, I can’t do that.”
“‘She’?” Butch raised an eyebrow. “It’s a big wooden… thing. If I had a TARthingy, mine would be the manly. You just need to drop the whole King of England thing. You’re not English; you’re from some planet thing. Last of your species or something like that? That’s an easy fix, by the way, if you know what I mean.”
The Doctor turned away before he could see Butch’s thrusting routine again. It was true, he was the last of the Time Lords, but after The Last Great Time War, he wasn’t sure if his race was one that should survive. He didn’t want to be responsible for a new age of Time Lords, there was too much responsibility in it and, if they took too much after him, it might signal the end of the universe. Too much power.
But he never anticipated Butch to ever take this into consideration.
It was lonely traveling space and time, so the Doctor often found a human companion to bring with him. He was fond of the Humans, thinking them very heartfelt and driven at the best of times. At the worst, they could be almost as bad as the Time Lords. He has had many companions over the centuries, but Butch had to be the most infuriating. He was a lumberjack from the American Rockies who stowed away in the TARDIS one day when the Doctor went to the deep woods for a short vacation from his usual diplomatic travels. He was already halfway across the galaxy and 500 years in the future when he found Butch in the TARDIS’s swimming pool. They had been traveling together for two weeks Earth time and the Doctor had put a lot of energy into trying to get rid of him as humanely as possible.
“C’mon, Doc. Chicks dig that ‘dying’ crap.” Butch stopped when he saw the Doctor bend over and pick up one of the blue mushrooms. “What the hell is that?”
“Delicious, for one thing. We must be on Crathis. Anyways, somebody or something crushed these on their way back onto the path.” He looked closely at the ground. “You can even see what direction it went. Come on.”
The Doctor took off running down the path. He wasn’t sure if anything was in any real danger, he just liked running. It helped him think. Unfortunately, Butch has the bad habit of interpreting this action as in invitation to race. Butch tore down the delicate path like a steam engine. Sighing, the Doctor picked up the pace, making sure Butch was within a good shouting distance in case they needed to stop. He didn’t like Butch, but he also didn’t want to be responsible for Butch freezing to death when the Snow Tsunami comes along.
Eventually, Butch now a figure that threatened be lost in the trees in the distance, the Doctor came across a modest house not too far off the path. The tracks he was following - thankfully never completely lost under Butch’s heavy footprints- turned to the house. He called for Butch to stop. Thankfully, he did and started coming back. The Doctor wasn’t interested in sending out a search party to find the idiot.
“I won.” Butch said as he came back to the Doctor. Butch’s face was a bright red, thick veins protruded from his neck and on his forehead from the energy he pretended he wasn’t exerting.
“Very good. Let’s go inside.”
“I can break the door down for you,” Butch volunteered, flexing slightly. “Give it the old patented ‘Butch Shoulder.’ Should make short work of it.”
“It’s open.”
A little disappointed, Butch followed the Doctor into the house. The doctor went to the light switch and pulled out the device from his pocket. It whistled again.
“And what’s that thing you keep playing with? Some sort of vibrator? Or some sort of flashlight? Or some sort of vibrator/flashlight? That’s messed up. Are all aliens that kinky? You don’t lay eggs, do you?”
“It’s a screwdriver. It’s a sonic screwdriver, okay?” If he told Butch once, he told him a thousand times. “It’s the Mark V model of the sonic screwdriver. Do you have any more questions you want me to answer again?”
“Okay okay, geez. You English aliens sure are sensitive.” He leaned against the door frame as the Doctor made the lights turn on. “So it’s just a screwdriver?”
“It’s a sonic screwdriver.”
“Whatever. Why don’t you carry a gun?”
“Shh!”
The Doctor led Butch deep into the house, freezing when he heard a quiet whirring. From out of the corner of his eye, he saw a faint blue light. He turned.
“Doctor.”
Mr. Dalek rolled out of the room, its eyestalk trained on the Doctor. The Doctor backed up against the wall, his grip on the sonic screwdriver tightening.
“Doctor,” he repeated. “I am a good Dalek. They will take me back. Exterminate the Doctor! Daleks are-”
“BA HA HA HA HA!”
The Doctor and the Dalek turned to Butch, who was down the hall and laughing hysterically.
“What are you laughing at?” The Doctor and the Dalek asked simultaneously, only to glare at each other for doing so.
Butch laughed again, staggering over to the two and trying not to fall over laughing. “YOU,” he said to the Dalek. “YOU are going to kill HIM? With what? Your little plunger?”
“Butch,” the Doctor warned. “Stop.”
“But he’s a little guy. Look at him.” Butch gave the Dalek a good shove and made him move a few feet back.
“You are not to touch a Dalek! Daleks are not to be-”
He was pushed again.
“You will be exterminated if you-”
Butch laughed and pushed him again. “I wonder what would happen if he goes down a flight of sta-”
There was a bright flash of light and Butch was gone. The Dalek looked to the Doctor, expecting to see significantly more sympathy than what the Doctor expressed at seeing his companion be vaporized.
“You cannot revive him, Doctor,” the Dalek said.
“I’ve accepted this.” The Doctor took a little step back as the Dalek trained his gunstick on him. “Why did they drop you on this planet?”
“They gave no reason. They don’t need a reason, it’s clear why. They thought I wasn’t a good Dalek! But I’ll show them. I am a true Dalek! And the Daleks will be known for exterminating the Doctor!”
He swallowed hard. “I-”
A loud crash nearly stopped both the Doctor’s hearts. There was a loud cry and a blur of green and silver before the Dalek lay on the floor, his eyestalk mutilated and lying several yards away from his body. Standing above him was Butch, carrying a large axe and looking quite red.
The Doctor stared at him. “What the hell just happened?”
“This metal bastard teleported me to a shed with an old lady and some kid! I’ll show him what happens when you teleport me without permission!”
“But that wasn’t supposed to teleport you, Butch. It was supposed to kill you.”
Butch was unfazed as he looked back down at the Dalek, whose gunstick and plunger moved around helplessly.
“No!” it cried. “The fall! Malfunction! I am defective! I’m a bad Dalek! A bad Dalek!!”
Butch looked up to the Doctor. “What now?”
The Dalek flailed. “KILL ME!”
Butch raised the axe, but the Doctor stopped him. “Don’t.” He looked down at the writhing metal mass at his feet. “He can’t hurt anyone now. The Daleks won’t want him back. Let’s just drag him back to the woods. I’ll check on the old woman and child.”
The Dalek cried as Butch picked him up and carried him out the door and into the purple forest. The Doctor led the old woman and Little Red back into the house. He gently wiped Little Red’s tears away as she told him what happened.
“I shouldn’t have talked to Mr. Dalek,” she cried. “Mother told me not to talk to strangers shaped like pepper pots.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he comforted. “Nobody was hurt. Besides.” He knelt down in front of her. “It was kind of exciting, wasn’t it?”
A little smile. “Yeah.”
“Just be careful, not all Daleks are as harmless as this one was. You were lucky.”
“I won’t help any more of them.”
“Good girl.”
He made sure they were safe in the house before he walked back onto the path and met up with Butch.
“Can we go to Shan Shen now?”
“Sure.”
The two walked down the path towards the TARDIS.
“You thought that little guy killed me?” Butch asked, breaking the silence
“I was afraid so, yeah.”
“You were going to avenge me, right?”
The Doctor hesitated. “Sure.”