Doctor Who: Panic Moon Ch. 25

Author's Note: This is a sequel series to Amy, Captured. To get the full experience, please read through that one first.

Hey guys, apologies for the long delay between chapters here, I've been working on a few other things that you might find interesting, coming in future. I'm back on the Panic Moon bandwagon, hard at work on the next chapter, so it shouldn't be too long incoming. In the meantime, I'd appreciate any feedback and votes you guys want to give. Enjoy!

Kurokami

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

'You keep getting looks.'

'Yes, thank you. I can tell. I may not have eyes, but I'm not blind, Lysithea,' Dulcimer sent, the apex of her gaze swinging around to regard the alien.

'I know that,' She replied. 'But it does make me want to ask: What happened to the Dullahan? Your people are only stories to me, but you are here, you exist. Where are the rest?'

'That's a long story. And I can't blame these people for looking,' The Dullahan seemed to sigh, though it was hard to tell without any real sound. 'I doubt there's anyone here who has even seen one of us before. We don't really leave the homeworld.'

'You did,' Lysithea pointed out.

'Yes. I did. Can we talk about something else, please?'

'Yeah, okay,' The Trine-form craned her neck to look back, eyeing Sally and Lorna as they walked side by side, some ways behind the pair of aliens. 'Come on girls, keep up. This is hardly the place to be unescorted.'

'Aren't you two technically the same?' Sally, always the most willing to speak up, asked.

'Ah yes, but we aren't wearing those Collars,' The pale alien responded with a sly smile, winking a clear green eye at them. 'That's quite a distinguishing factor. Just look at the kinds of attentionyou two are attracting.'

True enough, the non-contemporaneous duo were attracting an undue amount of attention, mostly from the passersby, but occasionally from the service staff working the stalls and out-facing shops, too. It was frankly unnerving; the citizens of Selestene were uniformly well dressed and aristocratic in manner, and their expressions had a refined sort of detachment to them. This city was filled with libertine dignitaries and a wealthy criminal element; an Arcology for those with lots of money and a minimum of respect for the law. The kinds of things they would be perfectly willing to do to people like Lorna and Sally didn't bear thinking about.

The four of them walked well kept streets, with the aliens walking ahead to cut through the crowds; the streets were filled with humanity, and not much else. Lorna got the feeling that Selestene didn't get a lot of nonhuman traffic, or that if it did, the aliens had the good sense to stick to being unseen. These folks had never seen anything like Dulcimer and Lysithea before.

'I'm glad you convinced me to come out, I'm getting all sorts of interesting signals from these people. This place is surprisingly murky, for a human city,' The Dullahan sent during a lull in the conversation.

'You shouldn't be reading minds without permission, Dulsie,' Lysithea sent back, keeping her words in the mental realm to avoid raising the ire of the crowd around her; she got the feeling they wouldn't appreciate knowing that a couple of telepaths were walking among them with their empathic filters off. 'It's rude.'

'It's also not something I can help,' Dulsie replied, calmly. 'I can't just turn off how I see the world. I'm not even trying to limit it, these people are just brazen.'

'I'm beginning to feel left out, now,' Lysithea lapsed back into speech, the sudden return to the audible spectrum causing Lorna and Sally to look up quickly, receiving only a fragment of the conversation. The Trine-form had had to force herself into the habit of speaking; her own people were hive minded in the extreme, and if she allowed herself to converse telepathically more than she had to, it would be easy to slip back into it and not return.

'Well, let's find a nice likely cathouse with poorly maintained telepathic shielding, sit down outside and you can soak up some nice feelings,' The Dullahan stopped dead in the middle of the street, sweeping the focus of her awareness about the scene, lifting her mind above the murmuring of the people on the street to push the locus of her mind into the nearby buildings.

In a place like this, it didn't take her long at all to find what she was looking for.

'There,' She pointed, drawing not only Lysithea's attention, but the attention of the two human girls following them. Without another word she set off, allowing the rest of the group to follow her.

In truth, Dulcimer had found herself spoiled for choice, in regards to houses of ill repute; though on the whole Selestene was filled with crystalline towers and complex, sweeping structures, it hadn't been all that hard to find the arcology's red light district. The buildings here were more squat, the layout of the streets more conducive to keeping each individual person at a remove from everyone else.

Some buildings had wide, open entrances, beckoning passersby in as effectively as several hundred blinking augmented reality advertisements could do. But the one that had attracted the Dullahan's attention was far more discrete, something that did not escape Lysithea's notice.

'Yes, this one's good,' She nodded, drawing her eyes over the front façade. 'The people in there mean business, you can tell. No ads, no indication it's even open... sessions by appointment, probably. Good choice.'

'It's also exuding pleasure like nobody's business,' Dulcimer pointed out. 'No vacant rooms, so much the better for us.'

'Then let us sit, my friend,' Lysithea winked, perching herself with self-effacing daintiness on a garden bed opposite the unobtrusive building. With a vaguely concerned look over her shoulder at Lorna, Sally did likewise, a very noticeable gap between herself and the alien; this gap was quickly filled by the Dullahan, much to Sally's discomfort.

'It's been a while since I've been able to cut loose,' Lysithea sighed happily, closing her eyes and expanding her mental field. 'Without having to worry about the Chorus, that is.'

'I can help you deal with that,' Dulcimer sent, with the telepathic equivalent of a wink. Lysithea felt the tickling, light touch of the Dullahan's mind brushing against her own, waiting for permission for further contact. In many ways it was like a psychic caress, a gentle, almost seductive probing, sliding in further only when the Trine-form allowed it.

'Whoa,' Lysithea blinked, having to rapidly adjust to the Dullahan's connection, which brought with it a magnification of her own telepathic abilities. But it was the silence that was truly difficult to adjust to; generally Lysithea's telepathy brought with it a kind of low drone, as the hive mind of her people swelled like a tide through her mind. This was the first time she had been free of it, alone with her mindreading, and she quickly found it rather pleasant. There was still the usual morass of feelings and thoughts and half formed concepts floating up her spine like so much sea foam, but without the pressure of her entire race bearing down upon her mind, Lysithea found it all so much... clearer.

'You like? I've never had to block out a hive mind before,' Dulcimer said.

'Yeah, yeah... that's good,' The Trine-form's voice trembled, as for the first time in her life she could focus completely on the mental shapes around her; specifically, the physical sensations emanating from the building across the road. Though she couldn't tell precisely what was going on inside this house of ill repute, she certainly knew that the employees within knew their jobs very well; the place was awash with pleasure, flooded with the kind of delicious, burning desires that Lysithea had once been paid to provide for others. It was at once familiar and strange.

'This brings back memories,' The Trine-form found herself grinning, her mind going back to that floating brothel on Theros, her home and the home of her employers for several years. Time was, she would have been in the thick of this, acting as the conduit between different entities, a bridge of pleasure enfolding and enhancing the experience for all manner of paying customers. It might have seemed seedy from the outside looking in, but Lysithea had always found it highly rewarding work.

If Sander hadn't been attempting something that had never before been accomplished in history, she probably would still be doing it.

She became aware, gradually, of just how uncomfortable all this was making Sally and Lorna. She couldn't really blame them for that; from their position what she and Dulcimer were doing probably seemed very strange. After all, they were just sitting on the brick rim of a garden bed, twitching occasionally and soaking in the good feelings suffusing the air around them. There was no way that the two human girls could feel the same thing.

Yet.

'Oh my. Dulcimer, we're being rude,' The Trine-form laid a pale hand on Dulsie's shoulder, directing her attention to the shifting, nervous gazes of Lorna and Sally. 'Hardly good behavior for a host, letting our guests sit unattended while we... ahem, mentally masturbate.'

'Ah. Yes, I suppose you're right,' Dulcimer sent, allowing an odd sense of amusement filter into her thoughts. 'Besides, it would certainly be more entertaining to let the pretty things in on the process, don't you think? Kind of a local fix...'

Without warning, the Dullahan reached out, and Lysithea followed her lead, each taking hold of one of the human girls momentarily; the contact was little more than a tap, but its effects were highly dramatic. One touch was all it took; neither Lorna nor Sally had been trained in psychic defense, and it was the work of a moment for the more experience aliens to tap into their minds, sharing the second-hand sensations that they themselves were feeling.

The effect was dizzying, as it burst through the entirety of Lorna's body, making the muscles of her abdomen tighten reflexively, her form hunching inward defensively. Beside her, Sally did similar, gasping loudly as her entire physicality was expanded in an instant, doubled up, tripled, multiplied countless times by the myriad writhing, pulsing human forms beyond. The former soldier found her hips moving before she could even take it all in, swaying to the rhythm of an unknown number of partners between her legs, even if by proxy. Her mind rendered each touch, each stroke or caress, a whirlwind of fingers and tongues and... other parts, over every inch of her body.

'Oh my god!' Sally's voice trembled incessantly, and she gasped for breath, face red and eyes unfocused. The psychic link enjoining the four of them had clearly hit her the hardest; Lorna wasn't far behind, but at least she had been provided some level of psychic awareness from the Silence. The Earth girl simply had no way of knowing what was happening to her, let alone have any way to curtail the outer extremities of its impact.

'Quite a feeling, isn't it?' Lysithea shifted her weight as, inside the building, someone must have reached climax, a ripple of pleasure pushing through the foursome in sequence, sweeping from aliens to humans over their shared telepathic bridge. 'Hey Dulsie, care to take a walk? This is most entertaining, but I can't help feeling we could find a greater variety of fun. It's out there, I can tell.'

'Oh yes, I'm catching the outer edge of some of it,' Dulcimer replied. 'Little fine traceries. We could find a lot of fun, in this city.'

'Ooh,' Lysithea exhaled a tiny sound of pleasure, as whatever was happening inside the brothel reached some form of peak. She stood, offering her arm to the Dullahan, 'Then let us go, Miss Heskelyn. The rest of the Arcology awaits.'

Dulcimer bore up under the cacophony of feeling with far more grace than the others in her group; while Sally shivered and seemed to flinch at every new sense message that battered her, and Lorna mewled quietly at each new spasm between her legs, the Dullahan stood staunchly, tall and unearthly in the artificial light. For an entity with no facial features and hence no way of displaying emotion- visibly, at least- Lysithea found the slender alien somewhat beautiful. But then, she could hear the humming melody of her thoughts, of course.

There was something undeniably... neat, about Dullahan telepathy.

The four of them walked at a slow pace, the aliens' feet swinging, soaking up the very essence of the populace. It was easy to tell, simply from the sheer volume of sensory data the foursome were receiving, that they were heading inward, toward the center of the district.

Into the heart of this aroused and lustful city.

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

'Are you sure you're ready to leave?' Mara couldn't help but allow her emotions to show on her face; mostly sympathy, but she feared there was more pity there than she wanted.

'Yeah,' Sander replied, sighing to himself. 'There's nothing for me here now. Just dust and bad memories. We got the only thing we needed from this place.'

Despite his words, the tall man stood at the edge of the shuttle's boarding ramp for a moment, unwilling to turn to face his long abandoned home, yet at the same moment unable to properly leave it. This place was a symbol of everything he had lost, but... it was also the last marker of what he had once been. This wasn't just the memorial to the Hackett family, it was the grave marker of an idealistic, happy and deeply in love young man called Sander Hackett. That man was gone, and in his place was something...

Better? Worse?

Either way, he could still have ideals, be happy, and love. It was just all in the shadow of that one day on Vesperia, when the Doctor had come calling.

Off in the distance, something barked.

'Wait...' Sander's eyes widened, he strained his ears, hoping to hear the sound again. And he did, this time a little louder than before. 'Is that...?'

Whatever was making the sound was on the move, and as the sound persisted, it shifted up the side of the house, the eventual pounding of extremely heavy feet being added to the noise. And then, it appeared, bursting out onto the lawn, making a beeline for Sander.

'Naga?!'

Though he couldn't help but grin wider than he had in a long time, Sander knew better than to run up to the immense mass of fur that rapidly approached. Though he wouldn't mean to, it would definitely smack into him if he didn't let the giant thing come to a stop on his own terms. Which he did do, skidding to a stop before Sander and an increasingly shocked Mara and Amy.

'I didn't think you'd still be here, Naga,' Sander tried to seem casual as he approached, but he couldn't suppress his almost boyish joy as he got closer. 'Interface been feeding you?'

Naga was an immense- almost double the height of Sander himself- dog, close to a wolfhound in appearance, with mottled grey fur and eyes only for Sander. His size alone was enough to denote his alien ancestry, but even if it hadn't been the large crystalline structures along his back were a dead giveaway. Blue to the core and threaded with bright yellow, the crystal spikes jutted from his shoulders and down his spine, growing smaller as they reached the tail. He also had a rather intimidating looking horn, to match teeth that Amy did not want to get any closer to.

'Sander, what is that?' Mara asked flatly.

'It's Naga!' He grinned back. 'He's been with my family for ages!'

'Is he... like a family pet?'

Naga growled. Mara took a step back.

'He's not a pet,' Sander frowned. 'Naga's smart. He's more like... an associate.'

'Are you fucking with me right now?' Mara narrowed her eyes.

'We're taking him with us,' Sander said sagely.

'Yeah, of course, why not?'

'Hey, can you not see the advantage of having a guy with teeth big enough to bite a certain Time Lord in half, should he show up?' Sander sounded a tad defensive, but he already knew he would win this argument; he was the one with the money, after all. 'Besides, he's a Synthallisk. Psychic super-wolf. How is that not awesome?'

Mara opened her mouth to speak, before realizing just how pointless that would be. Leaving aside the simple knowledge that the man with the cash would always win, the simple fact was... yeah, Naga looked pretty interesting.

Besides, there was an infinitesimal, almost invisible, glint of desperation in Sander's eyes; a need to bring this enormous quadruped with them. Sander had always been most at home surrounded by strays- Ren and Dulcimer and Tsugi and even Mara herself were proof of that- but this... Naga was different. More than just a childhood friend, this was Sander scrabbling for what might be the last thread of his past left to him.

She could see the affinity between the two at a glance; who was she to deny him this?

'You have to feed him,' She relented, pointing.

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

'You're hiding things from me,' Lysithea sent, directing the thought privately to the Dullahan beside her. Emphasizing the mental walls the faceless alien had erected around her mind seemed like the kind of thing one discussed in private.

'I'm hiding things from everybody,' Dulsie sent back. 'No offense.'

'None taken, I'm hiding things too. But do you have to be so... obvious, about it? There's an etiquette to these things,' Lysithea couldn't help but look over, even though eye contact was pointless in many different ways, when it came to Dulcimer. Perhaps the Dullahan simply didn't have the same social mores about their telepathy that the Trine had; all her life Lysithea had been taught that it was the height of rudeness to telegraph her mental blockades. The point was not to have no secrets, but to operate in such a way as to make it seem that way. In Trine communication, such things were like landmines, or possibly barbed wire; anyone passing within mental range could possibly alight upon one without meaning to, subjecting themselves to a nasty burst of static, as they were rejected.

But Dulcimer had no such qualms about jamming, rather than simply hiding, her innermost thoughts; cool, onyx walls of thought surrounded the deeper parts of her psyche, shimmering implacably when Lysithea even drew close, let alone tried to probe deeper. Not that she ever would... But right after she finished speaking, the Dullahan's blocks simply faded away, as if in response. No new thoughts surfaced, the walls simply melted away, completely hidden with a moment's thought. The effect was quite shocking; just how powerful were the Dullahan?

'Better?' Dulcimer sent, without a hint of petulance. 'How are the girls doing?'

The truth was, not so well. It wasn't hard to see. Though the pair of humans tried to keep things together for the sake of appearances, they simply didn't have the level of practice in sense-sharing that the aliens of the group did. Nothing in their- very different- lives had prepared them for this; being buffeted in an ocean of second hand sensations, each step bringing something new, some other wash of feeling to swirl through them, staying for as long as it liked before it faded.

Some were strong enough to almost make Sally's knees buckle. Others were slight, uneasy traceries of touch, trailing tickling lines over her skin before vanishing almost as suddenly as they had come upon her. All were positional, and had individual shape and form; one step might yield the feeling of orgasm washing over her hips, vanishing in the next step to be replaced by the unmistakable feeling of a tongue running down from her navel. This would combine with a kind of hot pressure against her thighs; Sally wondered who, out there in one of the buildings in her immediate surrounds, was straddling something.