amberfocus | A Dangerous Creature? Not so Much (1/1)

Title: A Dangerous Creature? Not so Much (1/1)
Author: amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Donna
Genre: Crack, Satire
Beta: amyo67
Rating: Teen
Summary: The Doctor, Rose and Donna take down a monster.
Author's notes: For my sister authors. Stay strong. You are wonderful.

“What—what is it?!” the Doctor screeched, though if anyone asked him about it later he’d never admit that such an unmanly sound had actually come out of him. Or that he’d just admitted there was something he didn’t know. He backed away in horror and if he happened to be positioning himself behind Donna Noble, well, it wasn’t that he was hiding or seeking protection from the hideous creature. Oh, no. He was simply regrouping, getting his bearings, and figuring out a plan. In relative safety. Because that thing, whatever it was, would have to come through Donna first and she was already gearing up to take it down. And really, it seemed to cower before her. Like most things did.

Donna stood there with her hands on her hips and then tossed a look over her shoulder at him. “I don’t think it’s as dangerous as it looks, space man,” she said. “It’s hesitating too much.”

“It’s not dangerous,” Rose Tyler said. “I mean, not really. Not if you’re careful. I’ve encountered them several times before. They seem to like coming after me. They have them all over the parallel universes. They’re from a planet called Kritich and in their natural habitat they’re quite harmless. They’re very fond of Earth.”

“Doesn’t look harmless,” the Doctor said as the creature began to puff itself up even larger than before.

“Stop feeding it, then,” Rose told him irritably.

“I haven’t fed it anything,” said the Doctor.

“Yes, you have. You’re doing it right now. It feeds on the fear it generates and its own self-importance. It doesn’t have any skills of its own so it survives by trying to suck the life out of those it wishes it could be like. Don’t look at it!” Rose hissed as the Doctor’s eyes drifted back to it.

“If it fastens on to you and you pay attention to it, you’ll likely never get it off! The more attention you pay to it, the bigger it gets. It can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop ever until…wait, no, that’s the Terminator,” Rose said and the Doctor smirked at her as she tried to find her train of thought again. He was rubbing off quite badly on her in the last few weeks since their reunion. “It can only be ignored until it shrinks back down to the tiny little creature it started out as,” Rose resumed her explanation.

The Doctor stepped out from behind Donna and studied the creature with fascination. “I said to ignore it, Doctor!” Rose huffed.

“But look at it,” said the Doctor almost in awe. “It’s growing spikes now. And floating off the ground.”

“It’s puffing up again. Doctor, you’re giving it too much power!”

Suddenly it shifted in mid-air and Donna laughed. “Oh, it doesn’t have a spine. Look how it flops about.”

“I thought this was a planet of only vertebrates?” the Doctor said, spell broken by Donna’s guffaws.

Rose nodded. “It’s supposed to be.”

“Amazing how it survives without a backbone.”

When it turned purple with orange polka dots Donna began to laugh in earnest. “Really? We’re supposed to take this thing seriously? It’s ugly, it’s mean, and it’s got no redeeming features.”

The creature’s spikes suddenly sucked back into its body and it began to deflate. “What’s happening to it?” Donna asked, still giggling. Obviously it didn’t respond well to being laughed at.

“Oh, oh, oh!” crowed the Doctor. “I recognize it now!” The creature began to swell back up again. “It’s different in this universe, but I know it. I know what it is!” The Doctor was jubilant.

“Now you’ve done it!” Rose said taking a step back for the first time since they’d encountered the thing.

“No, no, it’s okay, Rose. It’s okay. Recognizing it is a good thing.”

The Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and advanced on the hideous monster.

“If I name it—.”

The creature screamed in sudden fear and began to back away from the Doctor. It knew. “Words have power and I name you. Lirkenwanq.”

The hideous screech that emerged from the creature was followed by it swelling up so much that it was now bigger than the TARDIS. It continued to expand and they could all see that its skin was thinning and that it was starting to fall apart. All reason, not that it had had much to start with, deserted the thing and it suddenly exploded, and green slime, half liquid, half solid, and with the foulest stench any of them had ever smelled, covered them all.

“You…you killed it. With a single word, you killed it.” Donna stared at the remains of the creature and then back at the Doctor. She wiped some of the goo off her face and pushed a decidedly green strand of hair out of her eyes.

“Weeellll, hard to tell with these things. It could be dead. It could be gestating the next of its species. It’s easy enough for these creatures to grow back given the right circumstances.”

“What are the right circumstances?” Donna asked poking the edge of the puddle with her toe.

“Oh, a dank, dark hole to crawl into, a safe place to lick its wounds, and one other creature around to puff it back up again and make it think it’s clever and tell it that it’s wonderful. Doesn’t actually have to be clever and wonderful, just needs something else to think it is.”

“Who would think that was wonderful?” Rose asked.

“You’d be surprised.” He looked up at the brilliant overhead sun and then down at the puddle of slime again. It was starting to bubble and boil. “Don’t think that’s going to be an issue here, though. It died fully exposed to the light, being named and recognized and laughed at. I don’t think this one is coming back.”

Heavy smoke rose off the creature and a moment later it burst into flames. They watched as the consuming fire obliterated every last bit of it. “Come on,” said Rose. “Let’s get this stuff off of us.”

They returned to the TARDIS and the Doctor quickly sent the ship into the Vortex while Donna trooped off to her shower. “How many times have you encountered those things before?” the Doctor asked Rose softly, taking her hand as they walked to their bedroom.

“Too many to count. For some reason they’ve always been highly attracted to me. Jake had a theory it was the blonde hair and the lack of credentials. They thought I was an easy target, uneducated. They didn’t know that I went to the school of Doctor and studied with the best teacher in the multi-verse.” She smiled softly.

“Come on,” he said. He pulled her into their bathroom and once stripped of their clothes he tossed them in the laundry chute for the TARDIS to take care of. He pulled her into the shower with him and smiled as he began to wash the green slime from her hair.

The thing about Rose was she was stronger than most people thought and he’d never seen her back down from anything. It was amazing what she could stand up to. And that wasn’t something he’d taught her. That was something she’d learned all on her own. Some people would never get that, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t always protect her, but she’d learned how to protect herself. And nothing, especially a Lirkenwanq, would ever take her down.