for magicalskeptic: A trip to the ocean

[rude_not_ginger]

"You wanted an ocean, have I got an ocean for you."

The Doctor darted around the console and scooped his jacket up from where it hung on one of the TARDIS pillars. He absolutely loved this bit. The first trip to an alien world with someone who didn't even believe in other worlds until now. Very little was more exciting.

"Now! We've got breathable atmosphere, low radiation, and a beautiful summer day. The waters of the Greeio Malgoon are purple in the summer, which is when they're the warmest and the safest. I'd have taken you to them in the winter when they're blue, but the water's acid content gets a bit high and ends up spewing out strange creatures with eyes that shoot lasers. Green lasers, they disintegrate you without much warning. Very technicolor world, the Greeo Malgoon."

He shrugged. "Still! In the summer, peak of tourist season, it's the most brilliant place for a visit."

Comments

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

As to what that was at the top of the stairs, Morgana stays silent. "They have been playing tricks on us all along but," it might be ridiculous, but Morgana suggests it because she has little else to offer, "we have assumed there is someone." People like the ones at the table always have servants, yet no one else is around, just the little girl and the people at the table.

"I do not understand, Doctor, if this is supposed to be a place where people travel to, would not scaring them stop everyone from arriving? And how is it known what terrifies me? Why have you not been scared?"

Morgana turns to the wall of technology and touches what she does not realize is a screen. It turns on, taking her aback for a second, until she recognizes the scene. There is a view of the beach, where they landed. She's sure of it.

"Doctor, where is the TARDIS?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor steps behind her and looks at the screen. Terror shoots through his veins again.

"Just trying to scare us," he says, primarily to calm himself. "That's all it is. Just an illusion, a trick. Trying to get us to run back to the beach, to stay afraid."

There's a creak behind him and he turns. The piles of bones are now skeletons, solid and still.

"Oh no."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Morgana has been around reanimated corpses, but at least they have had something -- rotting flesh, sinews, something to hold themselves together.

Thus, she reaches what she hopes is the truthful conclusion. "That must be an illusion as well." She almost says sorcery, but stops herself.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"We hope," the Doctor says, ominously.

The screech from the floor as the chairs are pushed back sounds real enough, and the Doctor steps between the skeletons and Morgana protectively.

"I think we should opt for running again. Door?"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

In an odd way, Morgana both recognizes and appreciates the subtlety with which he tries to protect her, but she's never been one to insist upon it, so steps beside him.

If that makes him angry, so be it, but he needs protection as much as she does. Besides, if her moving doesn't annoy him, her suggestion probably will.

"No. They do not want us here. They want us out. That means they're protecting something."

They are bones without real connections, so Morgana is literally hoping that they can only scare, not do any serious damage.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, and if these aren't illusions, that means they're probably going to kill us in order to protect whatever they're protecting. But what could it be?"

He looks around the room, but sees nothing. Nothing that could possibly incriminate anyone, nothing that the Doctor could possibly use to stop the slowly advancing skeleton gang.

Then, he looks up.

"Oh, there you are."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Morgana is too busy staring at what she would have thought impossible: the skeletons are now standing, and making their way towards them.

She looks back to the screen, still not showing the TARDIS, and back tot he skeletons. She takes a step forward, and reaches into the pocket of his jacket, she still carries. It takes her a second, but she pulls out a small round fruit (she's seen that before, and why do his pockets always hold so much more than they should), and throws it at one of the skeletons.

Morgana doe have excellent aim. She literally knocks the head off one of them but she's too busy focusing on them to see what the Doctor is looking at. "Doctor, who?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"You," the Doctor says. "You're on telly, Morgana. The whole city is."

He points up to the ceiling, far higher than he expected it to be, covered in small televisions showing various parts of the city and various rooms in houses. Whatever camera is looking at this room has zoomed in on Morgana.

"There's nothing here but puppetering, is there?" he calls out to the skeletons. "That's what you don't want us to find. You don't want us to know that you've been watching, that you're planning this! You just want us to be afraid!"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Morgana looks up at herself on the screen and is immediately taken aback. Under any other circumstances, she probably would have waved just to prove that it really is her, at this moment (being projected on anything, is a surreal experience for someone of her time).

While the Doctor has figured out that they are being watched -- something Morgana is tired of -- her last 6 months have been spent under close scrutiny, the skeletons have not stopped advancing.

Even the headless one keeps moving. They've already made it halfway across the room.

So, never let it be said Morgana does not acknowledge when she is wrong. "Doctor, do you remember what you said earlier, about running?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Yep," the Doctor says. "And now that we know what they're protecting, it's about time we made good on it. Come on!"

He bolts towards the door, stopping only long enough to pull out his sonic and wave it at the lock. It clicks and he throws the door open.

"In, Morgana, in!"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

There is no arguing, as Morgana runs out the door, the skeletons moving that much faster now that whatever is controlling them has now been noticed.

She pulls out her own might-be-a-screwdriver, which needs a cleaning from the crimson muck of earlier, ready to lock the door when the Doctor follows.

"Doctor, hurry!"

Underneath everything, the scraping of bones, the Doctor's footsteps, she hears something What is that noise she's hearing? It's an electronic beep, but what is it, and, more importantly, where is it coming from?

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

The Doctor gets in and slams the door shut, waiting for her to lock it before he turns around.

The electronic beep is something the Doctor recognizes, and when it beeps again, he leaps forward, attempting to knock Morgana and himself to the ground as a spray of bullets comes from a large, distinctly 51st century turret at the end of the new hallway.

As he's landed rather awkwardly on top of her, he attempts to shield her from any debris raining down from where the bullets are lodging themselves into the walls.

"We must know something!" he says. "Something more than we realize, that's why they've given up on just scaring us!"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

If Morgana screams, it's because she's never heard the sound of bullets. It is loud, and destructive on a scale she's not used to. It makes her think of little bombs, as the debris falls.

She wraps her arms around him, as if holding him, will keep him out of the path of any bullets. She's silent until the volley stops, and then whispers, as if her voice might set off another round, "We know the water here is wrong. We know there is a monster in the underbelly of the building. We found the little girl no one is looking for, and that her father was supposed to take her to the beach and all of this happened a long time ago. What else is there?"

This might be awkward because he still shielding her from debris that's now settled.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"And whatever this G.M. is," the Doctor agrees.

He looks down at Morgana, awkwardly. He's not particularly accustomed to landing on top of his companions, but at the time, it seemed the best idea. And, seeing as neither of them is riddled with bullet holes, it seemed he was right. However, now they have to figure out how to get the turret turned off and get out of here without accidentally touching something of Morgana's that he's really not supposed to touch.

So it is, of course, this moment that the lightbulb goes on.

"G.M.," he says. "Oh, I'm so stupid. Stupid and thick, head's too full of stuff!"

His voice is louder than he meant it to be, and the spray of bullets starts back up. He drops fully back onto Morgana to protect her.

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

"I thought it was simply the name of the planet, but do you know --" Morgana says, right to the Doctor's face. He really is very close and not moving, and while this could've gotten extremely awkward, his voice sets off another burst of bullets.

This is distracting, and frightening when one ricochets off the floor about a foot from them.

There are many things about technology -- dreadful word -- Morgana finds uncivilized and bulets are being added to the list. At least with a sword, one had to face the person they are attacking. With a bow and arrow, marksmanship is required. This method allowed their attacker to be something else entirely.

"Our tormentor is a coward," and the fact whatever is trying to kill them succeeded in frightening her with the bullets, has made her mad.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I got that feeling, too," the Doctor mutters. He awkwardly manuevers over her to try to get at his sonic. Cowards with something to lose, especially after what the Doctor just worked out.

"We'll need to dismantle its energy system," he says. "And then it should automatically power down. Well, probably."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Frankly, despite the fact this should be awkward, the life and death nature of the event would overcome any awkwardness.

Morgana turns her head to look around and see if there's a place to hide, but there is nary an alcove, or anything, and the bullet sprays, while errant will eventually hit the mark.

Considering how the Doctor is trying reach his might be a screwdriver, with their current positions, Morgana's been able to fish hers out much faster.

"Would this do?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

He can't get a hold of his, and hers is already ready. And, as the bullets start getting closer to them, he decides it'll have to.

"Aim it for the eyestalk," he says. "Next setting up, it'll disrupt the energy outflow!"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Morgana is not used to aim at things upside-down, or lying on the ground (and now is not the time to say her archery skills are, although better than average, certainly not marksman level), and she takes a moment to steady her hand, before turning on her might-be-a-screwdriver and aiming where instructed.

The bullets don't immediately stop, so she adjusts her hand slightly -- the stretch hurting her shoulder slightly. It's another few seconds but the bullets stop flying.

But she makes no attempt to move, and whispers "Do you think I hit the mark, or is it trying to re-aim?"

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

"Only one way to find out," he says, and he slowly gets to his feet. He cautiously moves in front of the turret, which stands blank and quiet. That's something, he thinks. If only he knew why, exactly, they'd bother to set up such primitive devices.

"I think it's safe---" he starts, before the eyestalk turns to face him and another spray of bullets shoots out. Whatever Morgana's done has set its aim off, and what should've been a chest full of lead ends up being the wall next to him instead.

He drops down immediately.

"Try again!"

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

"Doctor!" Morgana yells when he drops. Not seeing anything pooling on the floor, she refocuses on the immediate crisis. Even if the doctor is hurt, she can't help him if she gets injured as well.

No longer pinned to the floor, Morgana scrabbles closer to the device. It's easier to aim at things when one is neither upside down or farther away.

She pulls herself over to a wall, opposite from the Doctor, to brace herself against, and sits up, and aims again.

The bullets cease but she's not fooled. The eyestalk does not move when Morgana stands and creeps closer, but she uses her might-be-a-screwdriver once again for good measure.

Then looks to the Doctor.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

It's at some point between the machine finally properly powering down and sight of Morgana standing near him that the pain starts. While there's too much red stickiness on him to find where he's been hit by blood, he reaches up and touches his shoulder, finding a fresh warm stream and a whole lot of pain right below his collarbone.

He takes in a breath and sits up, applying pressure to the wound.

"Right, we need to get out of here," he says, taking in a pained breath. "I know who's doing this, and they're going to do everything they can to keep us from alerting any sort of authorities."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

Morgana drops to her knees and adds her own hand to his, to help with the pressure. "We are not going anywhere," she spares the briefest of glances to the turret -- which seems to have finally been disabled. "Until we know how badly you've been hurt."

The voice leaves little room for debate.

[rude-not-ginger.livejournal.com]

She's a difficult, confusing woman, but her touch is gentle. In a way, it makes everything that's happened worth this, worth understanding how kind she can truly be.

"I'm fine," he says, firmly. "Just a bullet wound, nothing I can't handle. We'll hit a hospital planet or something once we're out of this place. But I'm not putting you in danger by waiting here."

He hears a click, and he struggles to his feet. "They're going to try to turn them back on, we only have minutes."

[magicalskeptic.livejournal.com]

There's a momentary battle between insisting on looking at the wound right now, Morgana knows from past history the importance of getting wounds cleaned as quickly as possible, and the danger of another volley of bullets.

So, she has to make an unfortunate compromise, as she tries to give him some assistance as he gets to his feet, then fetches his coat. "Doctor, as soon as we are clear," another click momentarily gets her attention, "I will look at that injury."

He's the one bleeding and she's the one being deadly serious. She's going to look, whether or not he likes it, save dire circumstances.