Shadow of a wing (Doctor Who)

Green menace

It was a big, greenish slime monster.

Literally.

The Reaper stared at the thing that he had just stepped on and wiped his boot disgustedly on a patch of dry grass nearby. Then he grabbed a stick and poked the wobbling mass.

It still moved.

Face contorting in even more disgust, the Reaper pulled out his laser screwdriver and chose its highest setting, aiming it at the creature afterwards to vaporize it.

There was one thing he had learned from human videogames: No one ever needed oversized slime monsters.

His way lead further down an empty street, framed by deserted brick stone houses. No one was around, but here and there he could make out more of the green mass dripping from lanterns or grossly filling the gaps in the cobble stone. It took quite the amount of caution not to step into that stuff.

And to make everything a lot worse, there wasn't even the slightest hint of what he was looking for. Not a single person around, no weird inventions or other conspicuous things, and also no crow symbol.

So he probably was way too early again, which meant it would make sense to simply turn around and get away from this mess. But right as the thought manifested, the Reaper turned around a corner and came face to face with another slime monster, a bit darker in colour and almost as big as himself, and also at least twice as wide. It stretched and bent and produced all sorts of extraordinarily unpleasant squelching sounds.

Quickly he aimed his laser at the creature while taking some big steps backwards. Few shots later he had to face the fact that it wasn't of much use though. The smaller ones got vaporized, the big one... only got angry and started to throw parts of itself at the Reaper.

"Ewww! Come on, that's disgusting!" He jumped around in a zigzag to evade the stuff, all while shooting more laser beams at the creature. "You're supposed to be level 1! Not the end boss!"

Another sickening squelching sound was behind him, and before the Reaper could jump out of the way, he got completely engulfed by the green substance and sucked into the inside of another big creature.

It felt cold and he couldn't breathe inside that thing, so all his focus was on getting out again as soon as possible.

And then burn the whole place to the ground!

Angrily he flailed around, his movements slowed down by the slimy substance. His laser only produced small holes, never big enough to escape, so he reached inside his pockets and got out some bangers. Risky, but he'd rather get injured slightly than to suffocate in slime of all things!

The laser screwdriver ignited the bangers and the Reaper stretched out his hand to place them a bit away from him, silently thanking his respiratory bypass that was now kicking in.

Seconds later there were several detonations and finally the creature fell apart, spluttering slime and the Reaper over the ground, where he greedily sucked in some air, before he jumped to his feet to get away from any possible threat.

More of the creatures had gathered around, most had the size of footballs or small children, while some were as big as the two he had just encountered.

And then they suddenly stopped moving as a huge shadow fell upon them all. The Reaper gulped and looked upwards, while pulling several threads of slime from his hair. His eyes slowly widened in terror.

There was another slime creature. Only that this one was bigger than most of the houses around. It made its way towards him simply by sliding through the buildings, absorbing the other monsters around and growing slightly with each and every single one of them.

It took him a whole two seconds to close his open hanging mouth, then he carefully stepped backwards, made sure the way was clear, and ran.

His TARDIS greeted him with warmth and safety, even though her passenger was dripping green slime everywhere.

Panting the Reaper leaned against the closed doors, contemplating whether or not he should get back and detonate the whole place. It was disgusting enough to deserve it.

Really. Why did he even contemplate it?

It didn't take long and he had gathered his finest collection of explosives, piled them together and stuffed them into a big net. Then he got the TARDIS into flight mode and brought her hovering over the abandoned town, where the huge boss slime was busy absorbing his smaller versions and leaving green goo at everything it came into contact with.

The Reaper kicked the net out of the doors and let it drop right into the monster.

"Ohhhh.... this will be..." He grinned widely and pressed a button in his hand. "...spectacular!"

Few seconds later there was a loud rumbling in the air, followed by the biggest explosion the Reaper had seen in quite a while. Fire and slime splashed in all directions, now covering the entire surroundings.

Including the TARDIS and her inmate.

Disgusted he looked down at himself, only happy that the stuff at least didn't smell like anything.

"Pah!" He banged the door shut and marched back to the console, grinning into the air. "And you think I'm bad at defeating boss monsters!"

And there it was again, this time almost audible. A slight vibration next to him, as if the air was giggling. He didn't imagine it!

"Yeah, yeah, laugh at me. Dripping green goo everywhere. That you like, eh?" He chuckled and got accompanied by the voiceless giggle once more.

His hearts jumped and a smile stretched from ear to ear.

After all this time his ghost was still here.

However, for now he needed fresh clothes and a very long, hot bath to get that slimy stuff off of him.