Doctor's POV
When Melody woke up, I asked her where she wanted to go, and she just shrugged.
However, the TARDIS just stayed put.
"What's the matter with you?" River asked her, her eyebrows furrowed.
"Maybe Dad's flying it wrong," Melody suggested. I glared at her. "I'm flying it perfectly fine!"
Melody sighed and went around the console, flipping switches and trying to get her to fly. But the TARDIS just stayed put and shuddered. "Alright, it's not Dad's flying," Melody concluded with a sigh.
"I don't think we're here for just Melody," I muttered. "I think that's not the reason why we're here."
"Great. I feel sooo loved," Melody grumbled. "What now?"
"We find out why we're here," I said as though it was obvious (which it was). Then I added, "But don't worry Melody-the TARDIS still adores you."
"Meh...." she replied, and followed me out of the TARDIS. I pulled out my sonic screwdriver and walked in a circle. The whirring got louder pointing to Melody's apartment. I frowned. "That's not good, is it?" Melody asked. I shook my head and jogged to the apartment building. Melody sighed. "I thought I'd leave home for an adventure. Oh, well."
"Nice apartment building," River commented. "I thought it wasn't safe for a place to be lacking a fire escape."
"We might be moving," Melody said. River nodded. "Lucky you."
"Might. I hope we do, though-I'm sick of living in a two bedroom apartment and sharing a room with Stella."
"Aren't you going to be eighteen soon?"
"Melody living by herself would be a nightmare," I said, doing the thing with the sonic again. "I don't think she'd last a month-I don't care if it's financially or if she's lonely."
"Probably a combination of both," Melody grinned. The whirring got louder towards the elevator.
"Surprisingly, we're not getting any strange looks," River noted.
"That's because I'm in the group. My neighbors are used to me doing strange things," Melody said.
"What makes you say that?"
"I've walked through the building with a bra on. Trust me, they're used to it."
"Why-actually, never mind. I really don't want to know," River said. I soniced the up and down buttons and the down one lit up. "Melody, what's in the basement?" I asked.
"The laundry room, more supplies-why?" she asked.
"We need to go down to the basement," I said, stepping into the lift. River muttered to Melody, "Something tells me your reason for wandering around in your underwear involved the laundry room."
"I was out of shirts," Melody said defensively. River rolled her eyes and followed me into the elevator. Melody muttered something that I couldn't make out and stepped in with us. Melody leaned against the wall as we went down a floor to the basement. The doors slid open with a ding and we stepped out. It was early morning, so nobody was downstairs, doing laundry. Melody went to the metal door across the laundry room and she soniced it open with her laser light. "I've always wanted to be in here," she said excitedly. I rolled my eyes and followed her inside the room.
It was just a stone room with a round, metal plate in the middle. Melody walked across the dirt floor and soniced it open. "It looks like it goes down into a stone corridor. A tunnel system, maybe?"
I knelt down by her and looked into the hole. "Something's down there," I said, sonicing the hole. "Something living under London."
"I'll go," River said. I furrowed my eyebrows. "And if you run into something?"
"Again, I'm quite the screamer." River lowered herself down. "It's dark."
"Really? You guys must have horrible sight," Melody said. I smacked her in the back of the head. "Just because you can somewhat in the dark, doesn't mean we have horrible eyesight, Melody."
"I have cat vision," Melody said. I rolled my eyes. "You should go down there, Melody. I'll sonic around to see if I can find where the tunnels lead-if they are tunnels."
She sighed. "Hang on, River-I'm coming too."
River's POV
I heard clanging on the metal ladder and saw Melody climbing down. "So, you're coming too?" I asked.
"No, I just felt like coming down here for the heck of it," she snapped sarcastically.
"Alright, no need to be sarcastic," I muttered. Melody rolled her eyes and pulled out something from her pocket. "What is that?" I asked.
"Sonic laser light. It's useful," Melody walked in a circle with the sonic laser light out. "Pretty useful-it was also a flashlight, but Dad made the sonic come out of that little hole-it's bigger than the hole that the actual laser light comes out, but what good is a blue laser that's just a light?"
I shrugged. "I don't think there's anything in these tunnels, Melody."
Melody stopped. "We need to go this way."
"Um, why?"
"Because the whirring got louder in this direction. My laser light works the same way as Dad's sonic screwdriver does."
I shrugged and followed Melody, who still had the laser light out.
We stopped at a stone wall. "There's something behind that wall," I said.
"I don't think it's a wall," Melody said, sonicing the perimeter. The stone wall went back a couple inches, then slid aside to reveal a young woman with hair so blonde it was almost white. Melody took a step closer. "What are you doing down here? Who are you?"
The woman spun around. She was wearing a smile that showed her teeth, which where pointed like fangs. "I don't need to ask that about you. Melody Piper."
"How do you know her name?" I demanded.
"I met her mother. She looks just like her, except the eyes...where is Kat?" the woman licked her teeth.
"Who are you?" I asked, pulling out a gun at pointing it at her. The woman's eyes narrowed. "I think Melody knows, don't you?"
Melody swallowed. "I don't-" her eyes widened and her mouth formed a perfect O. "But-you can't-they left you stranded on Pluto! How-how did you get back?"
"Melody, what is she?" I hissed.
"She's a blix. They're like vampires, only if they bite you, they can control at night. Ella and Stella had a nasty encounter with this one when they were twelve. Dad and Mum helped them-Mum left her on Pluto and Dad helped."
"I've always enjoyed were-cat blood the most. Your mother was too slippery to get a hold of, even if she was pregnant," the woman said.
"Mum was also pregnant with me at the time," Melody added, taking a step back, but the woman grabbed her face and pulled her closer. Melody clawed at her arms as she hissed in her face, "Don't try to run. Don't even think about trying to escape."
Melody kicked her and the woman dropped her. Melody kicked her in the face again, and she sprinted for the exit, me following. We could hear the woman climbing to her feet then running after us.
Melody and I didn't stop running until the woman caught up and grabbed Melody's wrist. She brought it to her mouth, but Melody twisted away, losing her balance and colliding with me. We went sprawling onto the floor in a heap. Melody climbed to her feet in an instant-stepping on my ribs as she did so-then pulled me to my feet quickly. Melody was running as soon as I was on my feet, though. I sprinted after her, and found myself at the ladder. I climbed up quickly and pushed the cover on top as the woman reached the ladder. I was breathing heavily and I felt a hand on my shoulder. "What happened down there?"
"Blix," Melody panted. "Karen."
"Karen was stranded on Pluto, though," the Doctor frowned. "How could she have gotten back?"
"No idea," Melody was hugging her left knee to her chest and I saw that it was all scraped up when she had fallen. So was her wrist. I saw two little bleeding spots where Karen-I assumed that was the woman's name-had brought Melody's wrist to her face. The Doctor noticed it, too. "Melody, you..."
"It's fine," Melody said. "The only antidote for blix venom is their blood, and I got a lot of it on my shoe when I kicked her in the face..." Melody rubbed some of the red stuff off her shoe onto her finger, then rubbed her finger onto the bite marks. She squeezed them, and a clear liquid oozed out. I made a face. "That's disgusting."
"It's blix venom," Melody explained. "But it's harmless now."
"How'd you find that out? About the venom?" the Doctor asked, rubbing his left wrist.
"Ella and Stella. They only just found out, though," she added as the Doctor opened his mouth. "I bet she had the best taste of blood ever. Time Lord, human, were-cat..." Melody shrugged.
"Human?" I asked.
"Were-cats only mate with humans," Melody said. I nodded.
"We should tell Ella and Stella," the Doctor said. Melody nodded and stood up. She brushed some of the dirt off her legs, then sighed. "Ella's gonna kill me for ripping up these jeans."
"She won't when we tell her one of her worst enemies live under London," the Doctor reasoned. Melody rolled her eyes and opened the metal door. A couple people were in the laundry room, so we were stared at as we walked through. Well, I thought, if Melody really did walk through the building in her bra, then a guy in a bow-tie and suspenders, a scraped-up Melody and another adult carrying a gun walking out of a metal door wouldn't be the weirdest thing they'd ever seen.
We got into the elevator and Melody pressed the button for her floor. Fortunately, no one needed the elevator, so it was empty all the way to the top. Melody stepped out and unlocked the door right across the hall. She was automatically attacked by a woman with caramel hair pulled in a braid. "Melody! Oh, what happened to you?"
"You just got here, didn't you?" Melody said, hugging the woman back, then pulling away. "Ella, I-we-need to tell you something."
"Alright," Ella pushed open the door and Melody ducked inside. The Doctor followed and he just said, "Hi," to Ella.
"I was hoping you'd be gone for a little longer than this," she replied. "Less Melody time."
"More hell-I mean, Melody-for me," he said. "Oh, Ella, this is my wife, Professor River Song."
"Hi," she said to me.
"Hi. You're Ella, right?"
"And here's the other devil of this place, Stella," she gestured to another tired looking woman with the same caramel hair, but cut into a bob. "Meh..."
"She's tired," Ella explained.
"Don't treat me like I'm little," Stella muttered. "I'm going to bed."
"And drunk, apparently," Melody added.
"What do you have to tell me?" Ella said.
"Well, you remember that blix from when you were younger? Karen?" Melody said. Ella nodded, her face grim. "Please don't tell me she's back."
"She is," Melody held out her bleeding wrist. Ella took with and looked over it with concern. "Was it just you, or-"
"Just me. I got a lot of her blood on my shoe, though, which may have saved-well, not my life, but possibly being possessed." Melody shrugged.
"Did you trip?" Ella asked, looking at Melody's torn jeans. Melody nodded. "But I'm fine. Right now, we worry about the blix."
"What I'm worried about is the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "She was after one when we first encountered her, she might still be pursuing one."