Fic: Night Of The Harvester - Part 7
Title: Night Of The Harvester - Part 7
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, OCs.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2243
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The more Ianto and Jack learn about Harvester, the more questions they have.
Written For: spook_me 2024, using Torchwood, Pumpkinhead / Jack O' Lantern.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Set in my Through Time and Space ‘verse.
Previous Part
Time ticked slowly past, second by second, minute by minute, and still neither man moved, simply observing Harvester, studying how the creature moved, how it fed, looking for possible weak points. It was no use just blundering in and hoping they’d get lucky; they needed to come up with a strategy first.
If Harvester could see out of all the eyes in its various Jack O’ Lantern faces, in its front, back, and both arms, that would give it three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision, so sneaking up on it was out. It would see them coming no matter which direction they approached from, and since they had no idea of the range its life-sucking abilities had, by approaching it they risked having the life drained out of them before they could take any kind of action.
They did know that Harvester didn’t consume the physical bodies of humans or their livestock, in that respect it appeared to be strictly vegetarian, so at least they didn’t have to worry about being eaten if they were killed, which was reassuring. It was hard to imagine being able to come back from death after being converted into energy. Still, neither man was eager to have their life sucked out. Jack had been through something similar when he’d defeated Abaddon, all those many years ago, and it had taken him several days to wake up. If that happened this time out, Harvester would be gone by the time they could revive, and so would any hope of defeating him this cycle.
Most of their weapons had an effective range of up to forty metres, although Ianto’s pulse pistols were limited to around thirty. Beyond that, the electrical charge carried by the pulses tended to dissipate. He planned to keep those as a last resort, not eager to get any closer to Harvester than he absolutely had to. Besides, unless Harvester had a forcefield around him to deflect its needle-sharp projectiles, the Big Gun was more likely to damage a mobile heap of winter squash.
Jack’s plasma rifle would hopefully also prove effective, and the laser pistols were good for slice and dice, so…
“Swap you a pulse gun for a laser pistol?”
“Why not? Help yourself.”
Ianto pulled one of his pulse guns and one of Jack’s lasers from the holsters on their belts and switched them over. “Thanks. Yours have better range.”
“Among other things.” Jack smirked. “Ready now?”
“I was ready before, just not especially willing.” Ianto checked the Big Gun and disengaged the safety.
“The moment we step over the boundary between farms, Harvester’s probably going to know we’re here. Not sure why he hasn’t already noticed. It’s as if he’s only aware of what’s in the field with him.”
“Maybe he’s short-sighted,” Ianto joked.
‘It is interesting,’ the TARDIS murmured in their minds. ‘As you were making your way across the land, I was studying the terrain through the devices you are carrying, and I have detected many curious lines of force criss-crossing the landscape. I thought at first that they were created by the settler’s own solar collecting technology, since most coincide with the tracks between fields, and the borders between farms, but I believe they may be a natural part of the landscape. The settlers may not even have been aware that they were dividing the land in accordance with them.’
“Like Ley lines, connecting places of power?” Ianto suggested.
‘Perhaps, in a manner of speaking. They are neither strongly magnetic, nor do they carry an electrical current, and they are not radioactive, yet they exist, and whatever is responsible for them, they are powerful enough to be easily detectable, once one becomes aware of their presence. It is most strange.’
“Maybe Harvester put them there,” Ianto said. “Or they’re a side-effect of the meteor strike, if it WAS a meteor that brought him here.”
Jack shrugged. “We’ll probably never know, but if Harvester is using them as guidelines, it might sort of explain why he stays within the boundaries of a farm.”
‘There is a possibility that Harvester is not consciously aware of anything beyond the borders of the farm he currently occupies,’ the TARDIS suggested. ‘It may be all he is able to perceive. Not that he is, as you suggested, short-sighted, but that whatever vision he has is somehow being blocked.’
“You mean that the Ley lines, for want of a better name for them, might be acting as a barrier to whatever senses he has?” Ianto was still watching Harvester feed; it was almost hypnotically fascinating, in a creepy and wholly unnatural way.
‘Perhaps not merely his senses. It is possible, although by no means certain, that they could be acting as a physical barrier as well. The reports of his previous visits indicated that he would devour every crop on a farm without taking anything from the neighbouring one, even when the crops in the next field were within easy reach and there was no physical fence barring his way.’
“Does that mean if we stay on this side of the border between farms, we’re essentially invisible to him, maybe even untouchable?” Ianto wondered.
‘I cannot be certain, but evidence suggests it may be so.’
“In that case, if we wait until Harvester’s approaching the border between farms, let him get as close to us as we dare, we should be able to shoot at him from relative safety.”
“A nice theory,” Jack admitted, “and we should certainly test it out, but we’d better be ready to move fast in case it turns out we’re wrong.”
“Oh, trust me, I’ll be ready. Still, at least now we have a plan. Sort of.” Ianto’s eyes continued to follow Harvester as it ate its way through the cabbage crop. “He’s getting close to the end of the field.”
‘The track that runs alongside it follows one of the Ley lines, forming a border between the farm Harvester is devouring and the neighbouring one,’ the TARDIS informed them.
“Then that’s where we need to be,” Jack said. “As soon as Harvester gets within range, we open fire with everything we’ve got, and… hope for the best.”
“Hope for the best? Oh, that’s encouraging. Way to inspire the troops!” Ianto strode away from Jack, heading towards the track.
Jack stared after his husband in consternation for a moment before breaking into a jog to catch up. “After all the weirdness we’ve seen, and everything we’ve done, I didn’t think you needed a pep talk,” he said, falling into step beside his fellow immortal.
“I don’t, which is just as well, because yours are terrible. If we come through this in one piece, you might want to work on that.” Ianto smiled at Jack. “Good luck, cariad.”
“You too.” Jack leaned in for a quick kiss, which wound up lasting longer than he’d intended, but under the circumstances he didn’t think anyone could blame them for snatching a few moments for themselves. Sometimes even valiant heroes felt the need to draw comfort and strength from each other. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Stationing themselves ten metres apart in the middle of the track, facing the cabbage field, they watched as Harvester approached, looming larger the closer he got to them. They knew he wasn’t really increasing in size; their TARDIS would have detected any change in the creature’s dimensions, but that was the impression they got. At twenty feet tall, Harvester was an imposing sight, especially when he was moving straight towards them.
They waited until the towering pumpkin creature was no more than thirty metres from them, well within range, before opening fire, Ianto with his Big Gun and Jack with the plasma rifle. Sharp slivers of metal tore at the pumpkins and gourds that made up Harvester’s body, even as streams of superheated plasma set the tough pumpkin skins bubbling, basically cooking them.
“Mm, smell that! Roast pumpkin! Delicious.” Jack’s grin was savage.
“Don’t expect me to sample it,” Ianto replied, over the sound of their weapons.
Chunks fell from the monster, but other than that, there seemed to be no effect whatsoever. Harvester simply continued tearing up and eating cabbages, plucking up the fallen bits of his own body and eating those as well.
After a few more minutes, the two men stopped firing, watching in dismay as the damage they’d inflicted repaired itself.
“Not the effect we were hoping for,” Ianto muttered. “So much for our superior weapons; they barely put a dent in him.”
“What does it take to bring this bastard down?” Jack ground out between clenched teeth.
“I don’t know,” Ianto replied, reloading the Big Gun. “But I’m not about to give up just because our first attempt was less than successful. I refuse to believe Harvester can’t be destroyed.”
“Ditto, but there’s no point wasting more ammunition on it. We need to come up with a better idea.”
“Agreed, but we’ll have to think fast. We only have one night, and it won’t last forever.”
Following Harvester, but keeping to the neighbouring farms, they watched as the towering monster devoured a field of ripe oats, ripping them up in handfuls, roots and all, and cramming them into his mouths at random. The hand with its mouth hoovered up everything it touched, while the heavy, trampling feet seemed to absorb the fallen grain…
Even squinting through their goggles, it was impossible for Ianto and Jack to tell exactly how Harvester sucked everything in, leaving nothing but bare earth behind, but somehow he did. Every last scrap of organic matter was devoured, except for the scattered bodies of several native rodents that must have been helping themselves to the as yet unharvested crop. Still the monster moved onwards, not hurrying, just keeping to the same steady pace, as if he had all the time in the world.
When he left the field, arriving at the farmhouse and its outbuildings, Harvester paused, reaching through doors and open windows, since he was too tall to easily enter somewhere designed for people less than a third of his height. Time and again he tried, like a child dipping its hand into a barrel of sawdust, trying to find one of the prizes hidden in its depths. Each time he came up empty he seemed to grow more agitated until at last all of his mouths gaped wide in spine-chilling howls of rage as he realised there was no life within for him to absorb. He tore at the farmhouse then, with both of his hands, ripping down part of the wall in his fury, tossing the pieces aside.
“Oops. So much for preventing structural damage by leaving the doors open,” Ianto muttered, pulling a face.
“Better the farmhouse than the people. Houses can be rebuilt.”
“Not sure how much consolation that will be for the family whose home just got wrecked.”
Abandoning the house, Harvester turned his attention to the nearest barn, smashing his way in at one end, despite the doors being open, and out the other, clearly frustrated at the lack of anything living that he could suck dry. He treated the other outbuildings similarly before moving onwards, into the next field, where he began tearing up crops again, but this time his feeding was less methodical.
“Whaddaya know, looks like we made him angry,” Jack said with a tight smile.
“Mm. Is that good or bad?”
“No idea, but at least it proves we CAN affect him.”
They followed, still keeping to the safety of the adjacent farm, watching Harvester ripping up beans in a haphazard manner, dropping as much as he ate. The feeding almost seemed automatic, done out of habit as, instead of working his way back and forth along the rows, consuming everything, the towering pumpkin monster was travelling purposefully in a straight line across one field and into the pastureland beyond, striding straight through a fence as if it wasn’t there.
“Where the hell is he going?” Ianto asked, breaking into a run to get around the end of the beanfield so as to keep the creature in sight.
“Beats me,” Jack replied, jogging after his husband.
‘Harvester is approaching a…’ the TARDIS paused, and both Jack and Ianto could sense her confusion. It was rare she came across anything she couldn’t immediately categorise. ‘I am unsure what it is, a crystalline nodule of some description perhaps three metres below the surface. At your present distance from it, I can detect it only faintly through the devices you carry, but it appears to contain traces of metallic elements that are not native to this world, or at least not found in this locality.’
“A fragment of the meteor that brought Harvester here?” Jack suggested.
‘That would be a logical assumption. A meteor, on striking the surface of the planet, would most likely have shattered, the fragments scattering across the land in all directions.”
Ianto grew thoughtful. “What if Harvester retreats to the safety of those fragments when it’s not actively feeding? If he came from them originally, chances are they’re more suitable for containing his particular form of energy than anything on this planet.”
“Then why is he heading there now?” Jack argued. “He only just started feeding, and if he keeps to his previous pattern, he has five farms to get through tonight, so why is he wasting his time?”
It made no sense. Then again, when it came to Harvester, very little did.
TBC in Part 8
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, OCs.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2243
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: The more Ianto and Jack learn about Harvester, the more questions they have.
Written For: spook_me 2024, using Torchwood, Pumpkinhead / Jack O' Lantern.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Set in my Through Time and Space ‘verse.
Previous Part
Time ticked slowly past, second by second, minute by minute, and still neither man moved, simply observing Harvester, studying how the creature moved, how it fed, looking for possible weak points. It was no use just blundering in and hoping they’d get lucky; they needed to come up with a strategy first.
If Harvester could see out of all the eyes in its various Jack O’ Lantern faces, in its front, back, and both arms, that would give it three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision, so sneaking up on it was out. It would see them coming no matter which direction they approached from, and since they had no idea of the range its life-sucking abilities had, by approaching it they risked having the life drained out of them before they could take any kind of action.
They did know that Harvester didn’t consume the physical bodies of humans or their livestock, in that respect it appeared to be strictly vegetarian, so at least they didn’t have to worry about being eaten if they were killed, which was reassuring. It was hard to imagine being able to come back from death after being converted into energy. Still, neither man was eager to have their life sucked out. Jack had been through something similar when he’d defeated Abaddon, all those many years ago, and it had taken him several days to wake up. If that happened this time out, Harvester would be gone by the time they could revive, and so would any hope of defeating him this cycle.
Most of their weapons had an effective range of up to forty metres, although Ianto’s pulse pistols were limited to around thirty. Beyond that, the electrical charge carried by the pulses tended to dissipate. He planned to keep those as a last resort, not eager to get any closer to Harvester than he absolutely had to. Besides, unless Harvester had a forcefield around him to deflect its needle-sharp projectiles, the Big Gun was more likely to damage a mobile heap of winter squash.
Jack’s plasma rifle would hopefully also prove effective, and the laser pistols were good for slice and dice, so…
“Swap you a pulse gun for a laser pistol?”
“Why not? Help yourself.”
Ianto pulled one of his pulse guns and one of Jack’s lasers from the holsters on their belts and switched them over. “Thanks. Yours have better range.”
“Among other things.” Jack smirked. “Ready now?”
“I was ready before, just not especially willing.” Ianto checked the Big Gun and disengaged the safety.
“The moment we step over the boundary between farms, Harvester’s probably going to know we’re here. Not sure why he hasn’t already noticed. It’s as if he’s only aware of what’s in the field with him.”
“Maybe he’s short-sighted,” Ianto joked.
‘It is interesting,’ the TARDIS murmured in their minds. ‘As you were making your way across the land, I was studying the terrain through the devices you are carrying, and I have detected many curious lines of force criss-crossing the landscape. I thought at first that they were created by the settler’s own solar collecting technology, since most coincide with the tracks between fields, and the borders between farms, but I believe they may be a natural part of the landscape. The settlers may not even have been aware that they were dividing the land in accordance with them.’
“Like Ley lines, connecting places of power?” Ianto suggested.
‘Perhaps, in a manner of speaking. They are neither strongly magnetic, nor do they carry an electrical current, and they are not radioactive, yet they exist, and whatever is responsible for them, they are powerful enough to be easily detectable, once one becomes aware of their presence. It is most strange.’
“Maybe Harvester put them there,” Ianto said. “Or they’re a side-effect of the meteor strike, if it WAS a meteor that brought him here.”
Jack shrugged. “We’ll probably never know, but if Harvester is using them as guidelines, it might sort of explain why he stays within the boundaries of a farm.”
‘There is a possibility that Harvester is not consciously aware of anything beyond the borders of the farm he currently occupies,’ the TARDIS suggested. ‘It may be all he is able to perceive. Not that he is, as you suggested, short-sighted, but that whatever vision he has is somehow being blocked.’
“You mean that the Ley lines, for want of a better name for them, might be acting as a barrier to whatever senses he has?” Ianto was still watching Harvester feed; it was almost hypnotically fascinating, in a creepy and wholly unnatural way.
‘Perhaps not merely his senses. It is possible, although by no means certain, that they could be acting as a physical barrier as well. The reports of his previous visits indicated that he would devour every crop on a farm without taking anything from the neighbouring one, even when the crops in the next field were within easy reach and there was no physical fence barring his way.’
“Does that mean if we stay on this side of the border between farms, we’re essentially invisible to him, maybe even untouchable?” Ianto wondered.
‘I cannot be certain, but evidence suggests it may be so.’
“In that case, if we wait until Harvester’s approaching the border between farms, let him get as close to us as we dare, we should be able to shoot at him from relative safety.”
“A nice theory,” Jack admitted, “and we should certainly test it out, but we’d better be ready to move fast in case it turns out we’re wrong.”
“Oh, trust me, I’ll be ready. Still, at least now we have a plan. Sort of.” Ianto’s eyes continued to follow Harvester as it ate its way through the cabbage crop. “He’s getting close to the end of the field.”
‘The track that runs alongside it follows one of the Ley lines, forming a border between the farm Harvester is devouring and the neighbouring one,’ the TARDIS informed them.
“Then that’s where we need to be,” Jack said. “As soon as Harvester gets within range, we open fire with everything we’ve got, and… hope for the best.”
“Hope for the best? Oh, that’s encouraging. Way to inspire the troops!” Ianto strode away from Jack, heading towards the track.
Jack stared after his husband in consternation for a moment before breaking into a jog to catch up. “After all the weirdness we’ve seen, and everything we’ve done, I didn’t think you needed a pep talk,” he said, falling into step beside his fellow immortal.
“I don’t, which is just as well, because yours are terrible. If we come through this in one piece, you might want to work on that.” Ianto smiled at Jack. “Good luck, cariad.”
“You too.” Jack leaned in for a quick kiss, which wound up lasting longer than he’d intended, but under the circumstances he didn’t think anyone could blame them for snatching a few moments for themselves. Sometimes even valiant heroes felt the need to draw comfort and strength from each other. “Okay, let’s do this.”
Stationing themselves ten metres apart in the middle of the track, facing the cabbage field, they watched as Harvester approached, looming larger the closer he got to them. They knew he wasn’t really increasing in size; their TARDIS would have detected any change in the creature’s dimensions, but that was the impression they got. At twenty feet tall, Harvester was an imposing sight, especially when he was moving straight towards them.
They waited until the towering pumpkin creature was no more than thirty metres from them, well within range, before opening fire, Ianto with his Big Gun and Jack with the plasma rifle. Sharp slivers of metal tore at the pumpkins and gourds that made up Harvester’s body, even as streams of superheated plasma set the tough pumpkin skins bubbling, basically cooking them.
“Mm, smell that! Roast pumpkin! Delicious.” Jack’s grin was savage.
“Don’t expect me to sample it,” Ianto replied, over the sound of their weapons.
Chunks fell from the monster, but other than that, there seemed to be no effect whatsoever. Harvester simply continued tearing up and eating cabbages, plucking up the fallen bits of his own body and eating those as well.
After a few more minutes, the two men stopped firing, watching in dismay as the damage they’d inflicted repaired itself.
“Not the effect we were hoping for,” Ianto muttered. “So much for our superior weapons; they barely put a dent in him.”
“What does it take to bring this bastard down?” Jack ground out between clenched teeth.
“I don’t know,” Ianto replied, reloading the Big Gun. “But I’m not about to give up just because our first attempt was less than successful. I refuse to believe Harvester can’t be destroyed.”
“Ditto, but there’s no point wasting more ammunition on it. We need to come up with a better idea.”
“Agreed, but we’ll have to think fast. We only have one night, and it won’t last forever.”
Following Harvester, but keeping to the neighbouring farms, they watched as the towering monster devoured a field of ripe oats, ripping them up in handfuls, roots and all, and cramming them into his mouths at random. The hand with its mouth hoovered up everything it touched, while the heavy, trampling feet seemed to absorb the fallen grain…
Even squinting through their goggles, it was impossible for Ianto and Jack to tell exactly how Harvester sucked everything in, leaving nothing but bare earth behind, but somehow he did. Every last scrap of organic matter was devoured, except for the scattered bodies of several native rodents that must have been helping themselves to the as yet unharvested crop. Still the monster moved onwards, not hurrying, just keeping to the same steady pace, as if he had all the time in the world.
When he left the field, arriving at the farmhouse and its outbuildings, Harvester paused, reaching through doors and open windows, since he was too tall to easily enter somewhere designed for people less than a third of his height. Time and again he tried, like a child dipping its hand into a barrel of sawdust, trying to find one of the prizes hidden in its depths. Each time he came up empty he seemed to grow more agitated until at last all of his mouths gaped wide in spine-chilling howls of rage as he realised there was no life within for him to absorb. He tore at the farmhouse then, with both of his hands, ripping down part of the wall in his fury, tossing the pieces aside.
“Oops. So much for preventing structural damage by leaving the doors open,” Ianto muttered, pulling a face.
“Better the farmhouse than the people. Houses can be rebuilt.”
“Not sure how much consolation that will be for the family whose home just got wrecked.”
Abandoning the house, Harvester turned his attention to the nearest barn, smashing his way in at one end, despite the doors being open, and out the other, clearly frustrated at the lack of anything living that he could suck dry. He treated the other outbuildings similarly before moving onwards, into the next field, where he began tearing up crops again, but this time his feeding was less methodical.
“Whaddaya know, looks like we made him angry,” Jack said with a tight smile.
“Mm. Is that good or bad?”
“No idea, but at least it proves we CAN affect him.”
They followed, still keeping to the safety of the adjacent farm, watching Harvester ripping up beans in a haphazard manner, dropping as much as he ate. The feeding almost seemed automatic, done out of habit as, instead of working his way back and forth along the rows, consuming everything, the towering pumpkin monster was travelling purposefully in a straight line across one field and into the pastureland beyond, striding straight through a fence as if it wasn’t there.
“Where the hell is he going?” Ianto asked, breaking into a run to get around the end of the beanfield so as to keep the creature in sight.
“Beats me,” Jack replied, jogging after his husband.
‘Harvester is approaching a…’ the TARDIS paused, and both Jack and Ianto could sense her confusion. It was rare she came across anything she couldn’t immediately categorise. ‘I am unsure what it is, a crystalline nodule of some description perhaps three metres below the surface. At your present distance from it, I can detect it only faintly through the devices you carry, but it appears to contain traces of metallic elements that are not native to this world, or at least not found in this locality.’
“A fragment of the meteor that brought Harvester here?” Jack suggested.
‘That would be a logical assumption. A meteor, on striking the surface of the planet, would most likely have shattered, the fragments scattering across the land in all directions.”
Ianto grew thoughtful. “What if Harvester retreats to the safety of those fragments when it’s not actively feeding? If he came from them originally, chances are they’re more suitable for containing his particular form of energy than anything on this planet.”
“Then why is he heading there now?” Jack argued. “He only just started feeding, and if he keeps to his previous pattern, he has five farms to get through tonight, so why is he wasting his time?”
It made no sense. Then again, when it came to Harvester, very little did.
TBC in Part 8