〖 THE FIRES OF POMPEII 〗
"I'LL SURRENDER YOU IN A MINUTE. DON'T YOU DARE!" Donna spat, wiggling against the ropes keeping her bound to a large column.
"You will be silent." The sister, who had identified herself as Spurina, hissed. Valarie kept her eyes locked on hers, unsure of what to say or do to get her to back off.
"Listen, sister, you may have eyes on the back of your hands but you'll have them in the back of your head by the time I've finished with you! Let her go!" She yelled. If Valarie wasn't bound and facing down the end of a knife that hovered over the center of her chest, she would've laughed more.
"No voice, not matter the volume, will stop us from ensuring the false prophet pays." When Donna continued to yell over her, Spurina rolled her eyes. "Soon, that prattling voice will cease forever." She threw both of her arms back, ready to plunge it into her chest.
"Oh, that'll be the day." The Doctor hummed, leaning against a column
"No man may enter the temple of Sibyl." She warned.
"Well, that's all right. Just us girls. Did you know I met Sibyl once? Yeah, hell of a woman. Blimey, she could dance the Tarantella. Truth be told I think she had a thing for me. I said it wouldn't last. She said she knew. Yeah, she would now. How are you doing Val?" He called to her as he slowly paced closer to the alter. The sisters parted, allowing him to stand to the right of Valarie's head. He had his hands in his pockets now, looking down at her.
"Oh, never better, dear." She plastered a sarcastic smile on her face. "Go on, keep telling me about how much of a woman Sibyl was." She nodded her head. His eyes went wide and he scratched the back of his head.
"I've never seen those overalls and shirt before, I like them." He told her, fingers playing with the fabric of the read short sleeve shirt. It was so casual, it was like he willingly ignored the fact she was bound.
"Thank you. What about the ropes?" She asked, tugging on them.
"Yeah, not really a fan." He pulled the sonic out, turning to Donna first. The ropes unraveled. He then did Valaries. She sat up, slipping off the alter. Donna intercepted her, grabbing her upper arms.
"Are you alright?" She asked Valarie. She nodded, and asked Donna the same in return.
"Let me tell you about Sibyl, the founder of this religion. She would be ashamed of you. Is this how you spread her word?" He asked them, like a parent scolding his children. "With the blade of a knife?" Spurina pointed the knife at him.
"Yes, a knife that welcomes you." She hissed. From a second alter further back a gravelly voice echoed.
"Show me this man." Spurina turned on her heels.
"High priestess, he would defile us." She argued.
"He is different. He carries starlight in his wake; let me see him." The priestess responded.
"Ah, very perceptive." he approached the priestess's alter. "May I beg an audience to look upon you?" He asked calmly. She nodded and two sisters pulled the veil back, revealing the monstrosity of the high priestess. Her entire body had been consumed with the same rock texture that had appeared on Evelina's arm. She extended her hand for the Doctor to take. He took it, feeling the living stone.
"Does it hurt?" He asked.
"It is necessary."
"According to who?" He looked at her.
"The voices." She replied. Donna looked to Spurina.
"Is that going to happen to Donna? To all of you?" Spurina rolled her sleeve back, revealing her upper arm was covered in the texture.
"The blessings are manifold." Spurina confirmed, wincing at the contact of Donna's fingers with the stone.
"Stone, they all have stone on them." Donna mumbled. "The people of Pompeii are turning to stone before the volcano erupts." Valarie replied. The Doctor observed the the high priestesses hand.
"I want to speak to you." He suddenly instructed the priestess
"But you-"
"Not the priestess, the thing growing within her." Her head snapped to attention, eyes settling on the Doctor with a new insistently.
"Words of wisdom, words of power. Words of wisdom, words of power." She began to chant. Valarie stepped towards his side, watching in horror. The priestesses voice now sounded layered; her own and a deep one.
"Your name. Planet of origin. Species designation according to the ratification of the Shadow Proclamation." The Doctor demanded.
"We are rising." The priestess warned.
"Tell me your name!" He shouted back.
"Pyrovile!" She screamed, the sisters now chanting the name over and over.
"Doctor, what's a pyrovile?" Valarie asked, leaning into him as they stepped back and away.
"Well, that. It's growing within her like a parasite. And that's the halfway stage." He murmured.
"And do I want to know what the adult looks like?" She asked.
"Uh, well, giant molten rock monster." He produced a small, plastic water pistol from his coat. "Donna, get that open." He motioned to the grill like grate in the middle of the roam.
"Where did you get a water pistol?" Valarie whispered. He looked down at her in confusion.
"Nine hundred year old, two hearted, alien man and your confused about why I have a water pistol on me?" When her expression didn't settle he became more annoyed. "Oh, help Donna with the grate!" He whispered.
"Now, why are the pyrovile here?" He turned his attention back to the priestess.
"We fell from the heavens, Doctor. So far and fast we became dust. But then these humans, we found them. We opened their minds and found their gifts." He turned to the two who had opened the grate. "Now you two, get down there."
"Down there?" Donna asked, as her and Valarie gazed down at rocky tunnel below.
"Yes!" The Doctor argued.
"Sisters, I see into the false prophets mind. The weapon the man wields is harmless." Surpina revealed. The Doctor shrugged.
"Yeah, but it's gonna sting." He began to squirt it at her. She wailed in pain, the water hissing on contact with her rocky skin. He turned to them and urged them down into the grate, They landed on knees in a tunnel. The heat was comparable to that of the ship Valarie had been on what felt like long ago with Martha; the one that tried to eat a sun alive.
"You fought her off with a water pistol." Donna looked to the Doctor who had dropped in. "I love you!" She exclaimed. He rose to his feet, and began to venture through a tunnel behind them.
"This way." he said.
"That way? Where to?" Donna asked.
"Into the volcano." He replied, looking at the two.
"No way." She gawked.
"Yes way!" He swung the water pistol around on his index finger before slipping it into his coat again. "Appian way." Valarie and Donna looked to each other, taking in his calmness in being within a volcano before they followed him deeper within. They ventured in silence.
"But," Donna shattered the silence. "If it's really aliens setting the volcano off you can stop it then!" They entered an over arching room, resembling a cave. Steam surrounded them.
"But I'm history to you. Valarie is history." Donna argued.
"Somethings are fixed. Somethings are in flux. You are flux. Pompeii is fixed." He argued back.
"But how do you know? Is tragedy just always fixed?" She snapped.
"Because that's how I see the universe. Every waking second I can see what is, what was, what will be, what could be, and what must not. That's the burden of the time lords, and I'm all that is left."
"How many people die." She asked. He turned away. Valarie rested a hand on her shoulder.
"Donna-"
"How many people die, Doctor." She demanded.
"Twenty thousand." He answered, a mixture of anger and sadness in his voice. He refused to look at the two humans.
"And you think that's all right?" He turned at her words. The orange light of the room framed them all. But something about him looked so different to Valarie. He looked so full of rage, for that second. Like he bore nothing but resentment. Before the conversation could continue a roar echoed around them, and he placed hands on their backs. He urged them forward, warning they knew where they were.
They travelled deeper into the volcano until they entered a large space, filled with large rock-like monsters. They cowered behind rocks and small fires, moving in silence and residing along a path where the monsters trekked. They huddled together.
"It's the heart of Vesuvius. We are right inside the mountain." He whispered.
"There's tons of them." Donna whispered. The Doctor's focus fell on an object in the middle of the room. He leaned over a rock, looking closer.
"You better think of something. This mountain isn't gonna hold up forever." Valarie told him, watching the rubble and stones tumbles down. The Doctor moved over, allowing her to join him in stretching over the rock and pointed to the structure.
"See that right there? That's how they arrived. Escape pod? Prison ship? Gene bank? Could be anything but that is ground zero." He explained. Valarie opened her mouth to question, before grabbing his hand, pointing her own towards a man. Lucius, she believed his name to be. The other soothsayer who she briefly had seen back at the family home.
"Heathens defile us!"
"Come on." He commanded of the two.
"We can't just go in!" Donna argued as he slipped down the pile of rocks. He turned back up, hands extended upwards. Valarie wrapped her hands around his wrists, his hands wrapping around her waist and lifting her down.
"Can't go back." He told Donna as she took his hands and helping her down as well. They began to hurry behind him towards the pod in the center of the room. It resembled a large brick, with a faint red glow from the entrance.
"Crush them. Burn them." Lucius cried. They reached the pod narrowly escaping towering pyroviles. "There is no where to run!"
"Lucius!" The Doctor yelled up him. His eyes were wide and he looked desperately crazed. "Might I beg the wisdom of the gods before we perish? Once this new race of creatures are complete, what then?" He asked.
"My masters will follow Rome's example. They will conquer, Doctor. Conquer all they can see."
"But why here? Why Earth?" He asked.
"The Heaven of Pyrovillia was lost. But here, there is enough heat. Enough heat to allow my masters to rise again."
"Than the whole planet is at stake. That's all I needed, thank you." He turned, urging the two into the pod. He used the screwdriver to force the doors to close and began to tear at circuit boards within.
"Could we be any more trapped?" Donna asked. The sound of fire roared around them suddenly, and the heat within the pod elevated.
"It's getting a little bit hot." Valarie urged.
"See? The energy converter takes the lava, uses the power to create a fusion matrix, which welds pyrovile to human. Now it's complete, they can convert millions." The Doctor revealed. Valarie's mind raced, images of the stone covered priestess coming to mind. The pain she was in.
"But can't you change it with these controls?" Donna asked.
"Of course I can, but don't you see? That's why the soothsayers can't see the volcano. There is no volcano. Vesuvius is never going to erupt. The pyrovile are stealing all its power. They're going to use it to take over the world."
"But you can change it back?"
"I can invert the system, set off the volcano, and blow them up, yes. But, that's the choice, Donna. It's Pompeii or the world." The Doctor revealed. The revelation sunk quickly like stone in water. Valarie recalled being a child and learning about Pompeii. About the bodies frozen in time by stone. The bodies of men, women, and children weeping. The agony they suffered. How could she have known as a child that the reason for that horrible event came down to the decision she took part it? How could she have known she would be at the heart of it.
"If Pompeii is destroyed then it's not just history, it's me. I make it happen."
"Doctor, the Pyrovile are made of rocks. Maybe they can't be blown up." Donna worried, hoping they wouldn't choose wrong.
"Vesuvius explodes with the force of twenty four nuclear bombs. Nothing can survive it. Certainly not us." He revealed. Huh, Valarie thought. There was a chance she was a body within Pompeii.
"Never mind us." Donna sighed, not thinking of herself in the slightest. Her eyes were filled with tears.
Push this lever and it's over. Twenty thousand people." He presented the lever to them. His hand hung over it. Donna moved first, placing hers over his. Valarie broke her daze and then placed her hand over Donna's. She reached down and took Donna's free hand, and squeezed it tightly. When Donna's eyes met Valarie's, she found her to be crying as well. She forced a smile, knowing this could be the end. Her eyes met the Doctor's behind Donna. She sniffled, as if it meant a possible goodbye. He leaned over Donna and planted a kiss on Valarie's forehead. Together, they then took a deep breath.
Together, they pushed the lever.
The pod began to shake wildly, throwing the three around. Donna and Valarie began to scream, partially in hope this terrible shaking meant they were to live. When it subdued, the Doctor forced the pods door opened and they stumbled out into sunlight.
"It was. It was an escape pod." They turned, seeing the sun being blocked out by smoke and ash. An avalanche of rock and ash hurled towards them. They rushed from the countryside they landed in into Pompeii. As they rushed through the town, Donna tried her best to help.
"Don't!" She yelled to the people who rushed the beaches. "Don't go to the beaches! Go to the hills! Go to the hills please!" She moved to a lone, crying boy who was ripped from her by his mother. She rushed for the beaches.
"Come on." The Doctor urged. They entered Lopus's villia. The family cowered in the corner, crying and sobbing.
"Gods save us, Doctor!" Lopus called to him. He ignored him, rushing the two in the TARDIS and shutting the doors. He began to turn controls at the console, Donna rushing him. She yelled and cried.
"You've got to go back!" Donna yelled at him! "You've got to! It isn't fair!"
"Val." He said, noticing her stiff posture facing the door. Her shoulders trembled.. She turned to him, face contorted in grief and anger.
"Please." She began to beg. "Go back. You can't leave them! At least not them, that family!"
"Don't you think I've done enough? History has to run it's course now." The Doctor argued back.
"But your home!" She snapped. "It burned, you told me it burned."
"But that's just it Val. Don't you think I would save them if I could? But I can't go back. I just can't. I can't." He approached her, hands on her shoulder as she continued to cry. "I..." He trailed off.
"Please. One person. Save one." She whispered.
Within the home, Lopus and his family huddled togehter. His wife and his arms covered their grown children and they were covered in ash. Then they heard it - the groaning and wheezing they had never heard before. It appeared like a myth, the light on top casting the only light in the darkness of their decaying home. The door flew open, and the Doctor stepped out extending a hand.
"Come with me."
___
Lopus and is family were taken to the safety of Rome. The Doctor had allowed them to see and learn what became of Pompeii before leaving them. The TARDIS remained silent. Valarie and the Doctor sat alone in the console room, with Donna having went to clean up deeper within the TARDIS.
"I'm sorry." He began. She looked to him with furrowed brows.
"What?" She asked.
"I'm sorry. For putting you and Donna through that." Valarie slipped off of her seat, traveling to his side and assuming her almost habitual position of holding onto his arm with both hands. She rested her chin on his shoulder.
"You didn't know. You didn't know." She comforted. Donna joined them again, smiling softly at the two. She took in a deep breath.
"Thank you." She didn't have to say for what. He knew. He pursed his lips.
"Welcome aboard."
The statement marked the end of Donna's first formal trip, and her first full taste of what the cost of being around the Doctor really was.
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Sorry for lack of updates! More soon, also I already posted this is an announcement but would y'all read some one shots for Oddity or my other stories? I have some ideas that I love but just can't work in the story properly. These would probably be published in another book, or here. Let me know where you'd want them published, if you want them! Thank you!