Doctor Who: Panic Moon Ch. 16

Where was Rory, anyway?

'I've been thinking, Amy,' The Doctor continued. 'Well, I'm always doing that. A lot. Vigorously, and in depth. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, you deserve better. A new master, one who'll pay you the attention that I... don't. And I think I've found him.'

... What?

'Hey, Amy.'

She froze, twisted, tugged at her leash. Her voice came out as a growl.

'Ah, there he is now!' The Doctor smiled, tousled her head. 'Now now, I know you don't deal well with new people, girl, but he'll be a good fit for you, trust me.'

She was tense. He was coming closer. No, no, no. All wrong. What was going on? Growling, at him, at the Doctor, at the world. Why had everything suddenly gone wonky?

'Hello Amy,' Said Sander Hackett. 'I'm your new master.'

************

She awoke with the kind of frightened start that actresses in horror movies could only dream of. It was real, professional level stuff; leaping up from the bed, hands clasping at thin air, dramatic intake of breath, the whole shebang. However, it included a decidedly inappropriate growl of frustration when she realized where she was. And that she was still wearing the tail.

Amy's head cleared slowly, the fog of sleep lifting as the dream retreated from the firmness of reality into something more insubstantial, and actual reality reasserted itself, in all its unsatisfying, vague and grim glory.

She was still perfectly fine; tail, yes... But no fur and a distinct lack of a wet nose. Those were all good things, but Amy found herself covering her face and sighing in frustration anyway, shaking a little as the last few seconds of her subconscious' slideshow played out on the inside of her eyelids.

'Layers of meaning that I could not begin to interpret,' Amy groaned to herself, giving one last attempt at reaching around and grabbing that damn tail, finding herself unable. She sat on the bed, artificial- yet highly convincing- afternoon light spilling in from the holographic overlay on the wall. The scene was rather pleasant, the sun dipping over the clear Trismestigius ocean, but like so much else here it was just a facade. Something two dimensional. She could count the number of times she had felt this moon's real sun on her skin on one hand.

Alien worlds and alien suns and alien rooms and regular old aliens... Yet all she wanted right now was her old room in Leadworth. More than anything.

'I'll offer you the choice again,' Sander said, leaning back against the wall. She didn't even look at him, stopped short of acknowledging his presence in favour of a moment of introspection, despite his being there since she had awoken. Briefly, she wondered how long he had been there for. It was entirely possible her impromptu nap had been the work of the tail, doing its work; maybe he'd known when she was to rouse, maybe he didn't.

Who cares?

'What?' She kept her eyes firmly affixed on the false sunset, with false waves lapping at a fake shore. She ground her teeth together as inconspicuously as she could, as the tail started wagging at the sound of his voice in a decidedly conspicuous manner.

'The choice,' His voice was so smooth and suave, controlled in a way it never had been before. He moved, placing himself firmly in her range of vision as staid blue eyes looked right through her. He was keeping something on a leash, and for once it wasn't her, 'You can choose again. Just this once. Because I'm so nice. Bow, and I'll remove the tail. Or you can keep it, and spend the rest of your life in and out of flea collars. Like I said, we're all responsible for the choices we make. Amelia Pond.'

She kept silent, looking out over the illusion of relaxing scenery, wondering what would happen if she just stayed silent. How long would he stay there, expecting her to make a choice? What if the correct answer was no choice at all? Taking the third path... That was how she had proven herself to the Doctor, way back, an eternity ago, on board the Starship UK. But that... seemed somehow worse. There was always the risk that he'd interpret silence as a decision toward... doggy doors.

Doctor, Doctor... She had her doubts that he could save her if she suddenly became a quadruped. In fact, she was beginning to have her doubts in general; granted, a few days was nothing compared to twelve years, but this was serious. The girl who waited indeed.

She knew better than to wait for the Doctor, because the Doctor had never dealt with a creature like Sander Hackett before. He didn't know how, not really. But Rory did, because she was his wife and now she was in danger, and she knew him. He was smart, and he would direct the Doctor like a weapon, he wouldn't stop, until she was back in his arms. That was going to happen. She was never a girl who had to wait where Rory was concerned. Maybe that said more than she'd realized.

But he couldn't save her if she refused to save herself. No matter how much it hurt her pride, she was no use on all fours. Whether it was reversible or not... she couldn't do it to herself. No.

Silently, unable to trust her voice for even a single word, she lifted herself from the bed, shifting uncomfortably as the tail's stabilising rod prodded her from within. She knelt, naked as the day she was born and feeling every little fibre of the carpet in incredible detail, and pressed her hands to her knees. With a soft, inward sigh, she dipped her head.

'I give in,' Her voice shook terribly. 'I'm sorry. Please, take away the tail.'

His head tilted slightly,' Is it any wonder I doubt your sincerity? Here, I know. A little test...'

He slipped from her field of vision, moved around behind her. She shuddered, gritted her teeth against the sudden sensation as the tail was pulled from her ass and quickly discarded, only to be replaced by something else. She felt him behind her, felt the heat and hardness of what must be his tip nudge against her too recently used hole, and stop.

'Move,' He said softly, fingers tapping a slow rhythm on the bare skin of her back. Amy closed her eyes and obeyed, since anything was better than the tail. Slowly, she arched her back and pushed her hips back against him, filling her ass with his length. She whimpered as she felt her butt collide with his hips; this was so much worse than she'd imagined just prior to doing it. This was active participation, this was not only allowing, but facilitating her violation. And she got a feeling he wasn't finished just yet.

'Keep moving. Show me your contrition,' Yes, she had been right...

He made her do it. The entire way through the ordeal, he had her fuck herself in the ass, raping herself on his cock, while he sat back and gave her pointers. He didn't move a muscle, except to add a nasty little vibrating egg to her pussy, as a "reward." Amy had no doubt that the intention was, in fact, the opposite; that the way it made her squirm and drip, made her clench down on his cock, was simply another aspect of this new humiliation. But she endured, because she had to; if she wouldn't work to save herself, who would?

When she came, panting and writhing beneath him as he refused to let her stop for even a second, impaling herself on him over and over even in the grip of orgasm, she knew. This man was an evil one.

She was almost grateful when he came, filling her with his seed for the second time in her recent memory, then left without a word. Notably, he'd taken the tail with him.

It took Amy a long time to move, and when she did, it was only to crawl up onto the bed and draw her knees up to her chest. She exhaled, deeply and unsteadily:

'Rory...'

**************

Sander had gotten used to the concept of planet-rises long ago, mostly during his stay at his old meteor base. The idea that what rose in the sky each night was in fact a whole planet, with life forms and ecosystems all its own, was oddly fascinating. There was no sapient life on the planet that rose above him now, but he did often wonder what kinds of things were living up there, and what they did. He'd never checked, though he'd always meant to.

Sometimes, one simply couldn't find the time...

He took a moment to smile broadly as, in the distance, a bright light ignited on the horizon before launching skyward. It flitted up, among the stars, before abruptly shutting off once reaching what he approximated to be escape velocity. Bye bye, Walker... Have a nice trip.

He allowed himself to feel the evil triumph of that moment, the dark satisfaction as the creature that had put Kana in this hospital bed drifted off to a slow death by starvation, among the stars. There was something nicely poetic about that.

He leaned back in his chair, watching the reflected, silvery light the heavenly body gave off with detached interest. Really, he wasn't here to brood. Jericho had informed him that Kanaria was showing signs of stirring, and he'd felt it only appropriate to be there, if only to test out her new voice.

If he were a more wildly unfeeling man, he would have admitted to himself that the actual act of planning and constructing an artificial voice box to replace what Kanaria had lost... had been awfully fun. He wasn't a doctor, and had been forced to rely on his various medical programs and his own expertise in robotics just to make something approaching functional, though the final product had been given to a mind far sharper than his own- namely Jericho- to pare down into the shining, singular example of biomechanical engineering that the autodoctors had spent the last six hours surgically implanting into the comatose girl.

Now came the interesting part: seeing if it would work.

Sander tensed suddenly as she stirred, and forced a gentle smile onto his face as her eyes opened; the last thing he wanted was for the first thing she saw to be his dour old mug. Best to put on something shiny and happy, just for her.

'Hey, you're awake!' He said, as though it were a surprise, and nothing could be more natural. Like it wasn't a big deal, 'Now, I need you to stay quiet for a bit, okay?'

She was clearly still dazed, and doped up on painkillers to boot, but she nodded. Thankfully her physical wounds, the cut across her throat, had been as easy to seal as Sander's own, so she wouldn't bleed out. But after major surgery, it was always best to take things slow.

'You've been knocked out for a few days now,' He continued. 'Walker slashed you across the throat, do you remember?'

Another nod, this time with wide eyes.

'He's gone, you don't have to worry. He can't hurt you ever again,' He soothed, reaching out to take her hand. When it came right down to it, she was Mara's sister, so essentially she was his, too, 'But you took kind of a big hit. We had to... replace some things. I know it hurts, but I need you to say something for me. Just... something short, okay?'

She nodded, those gentle lips parted, with an intake of breath that seemed barely there, an insubstantial breeze. She was only forming a single word, but Sander found the moment rather tense; he tried to pass it off as concern for her wellbeing, but there was more than a little pride invested in his invention, too.

'Tsugi...'

He blinked. Honestly, he had been prepared for the slight mechanical edge to her voice, as though it had been electronically processed just a little; it had been impossible to completely reconstruct her voice from nothing, so a little mechanical knowledge had had to take the place of some of her natural equipment, but the choice of word had thrown him a bit. Until he remembered.

'Oh, right! He was with you! He's totally fine, Kana. Actually, he probably saved your life back there,' He tried for an easy smile again, but mostly ended up with vaguely anxious.

'Can... Can I see him?' She persisted, eyes shining in an odd way as she spoke. Clearly, she could hear the difference too.

'Oh. Uh, yeah, sure,' He stood, patting her gently on the shoulder. 'I'm pretty sure he's still awake. I'm glad you're up and about too, kiddo.'

He left quickly, actually a little glad to be free of her. Concern was one thing, but guilt was a far more acute emotion, and it needled him just to look at her, laid up on a stretcher like that.

He'd fully intended to go right to Tsugi, to drag him out to see Kana if he had to, but he stopped dead when the wall mounted speakers burst to life.

'Sander, we have a problem,' Jericho said, voice far more urgent than Sander had ever heard it before. 'The Eternity Engine has activated, and deposited two new targets into the capture unit. However, my zero point generators are not entirely functional yet: they are unrestrained.'

'Two?!' How is that even possible? The Engine can't handle that kind of a load!'

'The short answer is that Marduk is at fault,' Jericho began. 'The long answer is that Marduk is at fault, but I cannot say exactly how. When he overcharged the Engine, he must have broken it somehow.'

'Okay, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it,' Sander shook his head. 'Priority one is getting these newcomers under control before they do some damage to themselves or to my machine. Who are they?'

'The first is Gwendolyn Cooper, formerly of Torchwood three,' Jericho chirped. 'The second is unidentifiable.'

Sander blinked, 'What? What does that even mean, in this context? Just check her off against the list of targeted timelines, Jerry.'

'She matches no known records, Sander. She was not an approved target.'

'That's impossible!'

'Nevertheless, that is what has happened, Sander. I advise extreme caution until her identity can be confirmed. To that end, I have already notified Ren and Dulcimer, and they will meet you at the access elevator immediately. I will also be on hand, should you require any assistance.'

'Thanks, Jerry,' Sander murmured. 'Now, log out. It's time we go meet the new guys...'