Life Less Ordinary, Chapter 6
Chapter Title: Gunpowder and Blood
Author: stormwolf10
Summary: The possessed Army regiment bears down on the village, and Daniel is forced to make a terrible decision.
Disclaimer: I do not own any Doctor Who canon characters.
Not content to just sit and wait for his doom, Daniel slipped away from the gathered Lakota and followed quietly behind the Doctor and Rose, deciding that if he had any chance of survival, he had to find out what they knew about what was going on.
"Couldn't we just kill the spiders and pull them off the soldiers?" Rose was asking the Doctor when Daniel came within hearing distance.
The Doctor shook his head as he fished his key out of his pocket. "I wish it were that easy, but if we kill the spiders while they're still attached to the soldiers, the soldiers will all die and the Lakota will be blamed. And then, the Army would send more soldiers out here to wipe out the village."
"So you just expect those people to just sit there and let themselves be killed by possessed Army troops instead?"
The Doctor frowned at Rose and shoved his key in the lock, throwing the doors of the TARDIS open. "No, I'm hoping my plan works before that happens. I'm sorry, Rose, but that's all we can do....hope."
Swallowing hard, Daniel ran a shaking hand over his face and thought quickly. There's no way the Doctor was going to manage to save everyone before the regiment arrived. They'd already begun gathering by the time he fled. Still, the Doctor was right. If the Lakota attack the soldiers, even in defense, they'd be deemed hostile and another regiment would be sent to slaughter them. I can't let that happen, Daniel told himself as he ran back to the village. Exactly how he was going to manage to stop it, however, he didn't know.
===================================================
"Hand me that tool by my right foot," the Doctor called from under the console as he worked frantically with a mass of cables and wires.
Rose grabbed the tool, which looked something like a high tech socket wrench, and handed it down to him. "So what's the plan?" she asked as she moved to the monitor to keep an eye on the possessed soldiers on the move.
There was a crash, and some colorful swearing, and then the Doctor said, "I'm rewiring the TARDIS to create images of us, infused with our mental signatures so that Veranix picks them up."
"So, a diversion. All right, but how does the TARDIS have my mental signature?"
"Well, besides the translation circuit which has already tapped into your mind, this TARDIS is made from a piece of a TARDIS that has had...fairly intimate contact with you telepathcally. There's some residual mental energy from that. Not much, but enough to fool him long enough for us to sneak up on him."
"There!" the Doctor shouted and crawled out from under the console, grabbing a disk-like object with one hand and changing the setting on his sonic with the other before firing it at the device. "Now I just have to get this working and slap in on Veranix, and everything should work out fine."
"Right," Rose said with a raised brow and a slight grin, "And what do you need me to do?"
===================================================
The Lakota warriors began to shout at each other and go for their weapons as the sound of boots crashing through the grass began to reach their ears from just over the rise to the south. Through the smoke, faint outlines of the possessed soldiers were slowly coming into view.
"Don't kill them!" Daniel shouted at one of the warriors, who simply stared at him in confusion and began speaking quickly in a language he didn't understand. Waving his arms wildly, he tried to mime that they shouldn't shoot at the soldiers, but the warrior simply shook his head and stalked off to join his fellows.
"Take aim!" a voice called from a few yards away. Lieutenant Harris had his hand raised at the front of the troops, his eyes glazed over as he waited to give the order to fire.
"Wait!" Daniel yelled as he crashed through the line of Lakota warriors to stand between them and the soldiers preparing to fire, "Lieutenant Harris! You're being controlled! Please, you have to fight it. I know you're in there, somewhere. You've got to stop!"
=================================================
Veranix's mouth widened into a fanged grin as he sensed two more minds come into range. "I recognize the feel of that mind," it shrieked, "Time Lord!" The Time Lord was trying to escape notice, but Veranix couldn't mistake the burning cauldron of brilliance and potential for such glorious chaos. "Ohhh, I must have a taste!" As the creature swooped down towards the illusory images of the Doctor and Rose, more spiders began to peel off from him, chasing their master's prey.
"Yes!" Veranix howled as he dove for the Doctor, and then...he stopped short. "An illusion!" he roared, and as Veranix turned to face in the direction where the real Time Lord mind was coming from, the real Doctor dove for him, slapping the disk onto his chest and pressing the large red button in the middle, which began to glow and pulse as the device embedded itself into the creature.
With a snarl of pain and rage, Veranix dug his black claws into the Doctor's shoulders and held on fast. "What have you done??" he demanded over the Doctor's screams as more and more spiders began to rip from him and swarm up the Doctor's body.
Rose pulled her pistol and held it up to aim for the creature's head, but there was no way to get a clear shot without accidentally shooting the Doctor. Tossing the gun aside, she ran for the two of them, wading into the ever-growing mass of spiders, her hands grabbing handful after handful of the arachnids.
"Am-amplified...the telepathic field...you use to summon your...spiders," the Doctor replied between gasps as the claws sank deeper and deeper into his flesh every time he struggled to free himself, "Now you can't control it!"
=============================================
"Ready!" Harris shouted, ignoring Daniel's pleas.
Daniel took a deep breath as his fingers curled around the butt of his pistol. I can't let this happen...
"I'm sorry," he whispered, brought the pistol up, and fired. Lieutenant Harris fell in a heap in the grass, still staring blankly ahead as deep red blood began to seep from his mouth.
Sensing a new threat, one of the soldiers snapped his rifle in Daniel's direction and fired at him. The boy screamed in pain as the round tore into his shoulder, and dropped into the grass. Hearing movement, he looked up to find the barrels of the rest of the regiments' rifles aimed directly at him.
"Well, I tried," the boy said as he closed his eyes and braced himself for the end.
=============================================
"Gunshots? I thought you told them not to kill the soldiers!" Rose exclaimed as she continued to dig through the mass of spiders that were crawling their way up the Doctor's body as Veranix held him fast, but the Doctor could only scream. Still, more and more began to break away from the creature.
"Don't let them latch onto you!" The Doctor commanded, and then let out another scream that chilled her blood as Veranix ripped his claws from him and exploded in a shower of black, glistening spiders that swarmed towards the Doctor and Rose, but without their host, they only made it halfway before shrieking and convulsing, then fading away in puffs of black smoke.
Rose grabbed the Doctor to break his fall as they tumbled to the ground. She began to peel his suit coat off of him, but he batted her hands away. "Hold still and let me check your wounds!" she scolded, but he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her with him as he stood.
"I'll be fine."
"Like hell you will! I saw those claws that thing had. Let me take a look!"
"You can take a look later!" the Doctor shouted at her and pulled her by the hand towards the TARDIS.
==============================================
Realizing what the young soldier had done, Runs in Thunder let out a whoop and began to run to rescue him from the firing squad that were training their weapons on him. He only got a few feet before Black Arrow and Ten Crows grabbed him by both arms and held him back.
"We have to help him!" he shouted, but Black Arrow shook his head.
"You heard what John Smith said," Black Arrow told him quietly.
Ten Crows looked up into the young warrior's face. "A warrior must know when to fight and when to simply stand. Trust in John Smith. He will stop this."
Suddenly, a loud shriek rose from the regiment and the spiders began to fall from their captives' bodies and disappear in a swirl of black smoke. As each spider fell, the soldiers dropped unconscious, and harmless, to the ground. The village erupted in cries of relief, and Daniel let out the breath he was holding, collapsing back onto the grass.
===============================================
"I couldn't think of anything else to do, Doctor," Daniel explained as Ten Crows worked on his injured shoulder.
"How do you plan on explaining it to everyone?" The Doctor asked, his own wounds being tended to by Rose, who was being none too gentle about it. "Ouch! Stop that!"
"Sorry, I'm not used to being a medic," Rose muttered and swatted the back of his head, "And it doesn't help that you won't hold still."
"Oof, sorry."
Daniel sighed. "I'm just going to have to say that the Lieutenant went mad, set fire to the camp and started trying to kill people. I just had to shoot him down. Self defense."
The Doctor shot him a look. "You'd ruin a man's reputation like that? Not to mention his family's memory of him?"
"One man's reputation is not worth near as much as the lives of an entire village of innocent people, sir," Daniel replied gravely.
The Doctor frowned, but seemed to ponder the boy's answer for a moment. Then, he simply nodded his head and said, "Good man."
===================================================
Ten Crows walked with the Doctor and Rose to the outskirts of the village. "My people will help Daniel clean up the soldier camp and return the soldiers there," he said, "Do you believe they will remember anything?"
"They won't remember anything beyond the fire, right before they were taken over. Your village should be safe." The Doctor put a hand on Ten Crow's shoulder and smiled. "Good luck, Ten Crows," he said softly.
"I fear we will need that luck."
The Doctor only nodded.
"Goodbye, Ten Crows," Rose said, taking the Doctor's other hand and lacing her fingers with his, "It was nice meeting you."
And with that, they both turned and walked away into the dark, towards the TARDIS.
Author: stormwolf10
Summary: The possessed Army regiment bears down on the village, and Daniel is forced to make a terrible decision.
Disclaimer: I do not own any Doctor Who canon characters.
Not content to just sit and wait for his doom, Daniel slipped away from the gathered Lakota and followed quietly behind the Doctor and Rose, deciding that if he had any chance of survival, he had to find out what they knew about what was going on.
"Couldn't we just kill the spiders and pull them off the soldiers?" Rose was asking the Doctor when Daniel came within hearing distance.
The Doctor shook his head as he fished his key out of his pocket. "I wish it were that easy, but if we kill the spiders while they're still attached to the soldiers, the soldiers will all die and the Lakota will be blamed. And then, the Army would send more soldiers out here to wipe out the village."
"So you just expect those people to just sit there and let themselves be killed by possessed Army troops instead?"
The Doctor frowned at Rose and shoved his key in the lock, throwing the doors of the TARDIS open. "No, I'm hoping my plan works before that happens. I'm sorry, Rose, but that's all we can do....hope."
Swallowing hard, Daniel ran a shaking hand over his face and thought quickly. There's no way the Doctor was going to manage to save everyone before the regiment arrived. They'd already begun gathering by the time he fled. Still, the Doctor was right. If the Lakota attack the soldiers, even in defense, they'd be deemed hostile and another regiment would be sent to slaughter them. I can't let that happen, Daniel told himself as he ran back to the village. Exactly how he was going to manage to stop it, however, he didn't know.
===================================================
"Hand me that tool by my right foot," the Doctor called from under the console as he worked frantically with a mass of cables and wires.
Rose grabbed the tool, which looked something like a high tech socket wrench, and handed it down to him. "So what's the plan?" she asked as she moved to the monitor to keep an eye on the possessed soldiers on the move.
There was a crash, and some colorful swearing, and then the Doctor said, "I'm rewiring the TARDIS to create images of us, infused with our mental signatures so that Veranix picks them up."
"So, a diversion. All right, but how does the TARDIS have my mental signature?"
"Well, besides the translation circuit which has already tapped into your mind, this TARDIS is made from a piece of a TARDIS that has had...fairly intimate contact with you telepathcally. There's some residual mental energy from that. Not much, but enough to fool him long enough for us to sneak up on him."
"There!" the Doctor shouted and crawled out from under the console, grabbing a disk-like object with one hand and changing the setting on his sonic with the other before firing it at the device. "Now I just have to get this working and slap in on Veranix, and everything should work out fine."
"Right," Rose said with a raised brow and a slight grin, "And what do you need me to do?"
===================================================
The Lakota warriors began to shout at each other and go for their weapons as the sound of boots crashing through the grass began to reach their ears from just over the rise to the south. Through the smoke, faint outlines of the possessed soldiers were slowly coming into view.
"Don't kill them!" Daniel shouted at one of the warriors, who simply stared at him in confusion and began speaking quickly in a language he didn't understand. Waving his arms wildly, he tried to mime that they shouldn't shoot at the soldiers, but the warrior simply shook his head and stalked off to join his fellows.
"Take aim!" a voice called from a few yards away. Lieutenant Harris had his hand raised at the front of the troops, his eyes glazed over as he waited to give the order to fire.
"Wait!" Daniel yelled as he crashed through the line of Lakota warriors to stand between them and the soldiers preparing to fire, "Lieutenant Harris! You're being controlled! Please, you have to fight it. I know you're in there, somewhere. You've got to stop!"
=================================================
Veranix's mouth widened into a fanged grin as he sensed two more minds come into range. "I recognize the feel of that mind," it shrieked, "Time Lord!" The Time Lord was trying to escape notice, but Veranix couldn't mistake the burning cauldron of brilliance and potential for such glorious chaos. "Ohhh, I must have a taste!" As the creature swooped down towards the illusory images of the Doctor and Rose, more spiders began to peel off from him, chasing their master's prey.
"Yes!" Veranix howled as he dove for the Doctor, and then...he stopped short. "An illusion!" he roared, and as Veranix turned to face in the direction where the real Time Lord mind was coming from, the real Doctor dove for him, slapping the disk onto his chest and pressing the large red button in the middle, which began to glow and pulse as the device embedded itself into the creature.
With a snarl of pain and rage, Veranix dug his black claws into the Doctor's shoulders and held on fast. "What have you done??" he demanded over the Doctor's screams as more and more spiders began to rip from him and swarm up the Doctor's body.
Rose pulled her pistol and held it up to aim for the creature's head, but there was no way to get a clear shot without accidentally shooting the Doctor. Tossing the gun aside, she ran for the two of them, wading into the ever-growing mass of spiders, her hands grabbing handful after handful of the arachnids.
"Am-amplified...the telepathic field...you use to summon your...spiders," the Doctor replied between gasps as the claws sank deeper and deeper into his flesh every time he struggled to free himself, "Now you can't control it!"
=============================================
"Ready!" Harris shouted, ignoring Daniel's pleas.
Daniel took a deep breath as his fingers curled around the butt of his pistol. I can't let this happen...
"I'm sorry," he whispered, brought the pistol up, and fired. Lieutenant Harris fell in a heap in the grass, still staring blankly ahead as deep red blood began to seep from his mouth.
Sensing a new threat, one of the soldiers snapped his rifle in Daniel's direction and fired at him. The boy screamed in pain as the round tore into his shoulder, and dropped into the grass. Hearing movement, he looked up to find the barrels of the rest of the regiments' rifles aimed directly at him.
"Well, I tried," the boy said as he closed his eyes and braced himself for the end.
=============================================
"Gunshots? I thought you told them not to kill the soldiers!" Rose exclaimed as she continued to dig through the mass of spiders that were crawling their way up the Doctor's body as Veranix held him fast, but the Doctor could only scream. Still, more and more began to break away from the creature.
"Don't let them latch onto you!" The Doctor commanded, and then let out another scream that chilled her blood as Veranix ripped his claws from him and exploded in a shower of black, glistening spiders that swarmed towards the Doctor and Rose, but without their host, they only made it halfway before shrieking and convulsing, then fading away in puffs of black smoke.
Rose grabbed the Doctor to break his fall as they tumbled to the ground. She began to peel his suit coat off of him, but he batted her hands away. "Hold still and let me check your wounds!" she scolded, but he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her with him as he stood.
"I'll be fine."
"Like hell you will! I saw those claws that thing had. Let me take a look!"
"You can take a look later!" the Doctor shouted at her and pulled her by the hand towards the TARDIS.
==============================================
Realizing what the young soldier had done, Runs in Thunder let out a whoop and began to run to rescue him from the firing squad that were training their weapons on him. He only got a few feet before Black Arrow and Ten Crows grabbed him by both arms and held him back.
"We have to help him!" he shouted, but Black Arrow shook his head.
"You heard what John Smith said," Black Arrow told him quietly.
Ten Crows looked up into the young warrior's face. "A warrior must know when to fight and when to simply stand. Trust in John Smith. He will stop this."
Suddenly, a loud shriek rose from the regiment and the spiders began to fall from their captives' bodies and disappear in a swirl of black smoke. As each spider fell, the soldiers dropped unconscious, and harmless, to the ground. The village erupted in cries of relief, and Daniel let out the breath he was holding, collapsing back onto the grass.
===============================================
"I couldn't think of anything else to do, Doctor," Daniel explained as Ten Crows worked on his injured shoulder.
"How do you plan on explaining it to everyone?" The Doctor asked, his own wounds being tended to by Rose, who was being none too gentle about it. "Ouch! Stop that!"
"Sorry, I'm not used to being a medic," Rose muttered and swatted the back of his head, "And it doesn't help that you won't hold still."
"Oof, sorry."
Daniel sighed. "I'm just going to have to say that the Lieutenant went mad, set fire to the camp and started trying to kill people. I just had to shoot him down. Self defense."
The Doctor shot him a look. "You'd ruin a man's reputation like that? Not to mention his family's memory of him?"
"One man's reputation is not worth near as much as the lives of an entire village of innocent people, sir," Daniel replied gravely.
The Doctor frowned, but seemed to ponder the boy's answer for a moment. Then, he simply nodded his head and said, "Good man."
===================================================
Ten Crows walked with the Doctor and Rose to the outskirts of the village. "My people will help Daniel clean up the soldier camp and return the soldiers there," he said, "Do you believe they will remember anything?"
"They won't remember anything beyond the fire, right before they were taken over. Your village should be safe." The Doctor put a hand on Ten Crow's shoulder and smiled. "Good luck, Ten Crows," he said softly.
"I fear we will need that luck."
The Doctor only nodded.
"Goodbye, Ten Crows," Rose said, taking the Doctor's other hand and lacing her fingers with his, "It was nice meeting you."
And with that, they both turned and walked away into the dark, towards the TARDIS.