Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"He's been kidnapped. Right. And there's dangerous robots outside. Right. And he constantly tells me not to wander off!" Rose muttered, before dashing to the console inside the TARDIS control room. She was talking just to distract herself from the panic that was threatening to overwhelm her. That was usually what happened when your resident friend and protector suddenly decided it would be fun to get himself abducted and leave you poor human all alone on a strange planet. Right now she was fingering the various controls of the TARDIS, not for the first time wishing the Doctor would have had the good sense to install a TakeMeToHimIamPanicking!-button. No such thing, of course. Most of the inscriptions were in Gallifreyan, the language of his odd species, anyway, and she couldn't read any of that. She would have to go search for the Doctor on foot, or - she shuddered - let herself also be transmatted by those weird robots. Not that that would please the Doctor much...

Her gaze flickered to the unconscious form on the car seats again. Of course, she had almost completely forgotten about him. He was male, she had decided, on account of the lack of milk glands. Only now she noticed that somebody had made the poor thing wear gloves and shoes. Without thinking about it, she knelt down to remove them, frowning as she did so. Even in London she couldn't stand people that made their dogs or cats wear clothing just because it looked 'cute' and 'chic'. It made the poor things uncomfortable and the fact that these people spent money on clothes for their pets while in other parts of the Earth there were people who couldn't clothe their children, always let her hackles rise.

Carefully she stripped off the gloves, socks and shoes to put them away. The breathing of the alien was more regular now and judging by the little noises he made, he would probably wake up soon. On a flash of inspiration (and slightly desperate hope for maybe a mobile number), she checked for a collar, but found nothing. Pity. But still, if the robots were gone outside, maybe he could lead her to his owner, where she could get help. The Doctor had said they were human here, and if they wanted his aid, then she hoped she could count on them to help rescue him so he could solve whatever problem the people here had.

Which is probably jellyfish robots kidnapping you, Rose thought. The girl sighed, striding back to the console and rubbing her head.

There was a sound from the unconscious alien. Rose looked over her shoulder with raised eyebrows. To her it had sounded almost like human speech. But then again, "Aargh. Somebody got the number of that Badnik?" didn't make much sense, so she assumed that it had been the telepathic TARDIS, who usually translated everything for everyone. ("She gets into your head," the Doctor had said. "It's a lot nicer than a fish in my ear," Rose had replied.) It meant they could talk to people across the galaxy, and if the TARDIS had now tried to interpret the sounds of the animal, it was no wonder that the result was gibberish. Nevertheless, it was a sign that the alien was waking up. Rose went over and squatted in front of the bench.

"Hello there," she cooed, smiling at the stirring form. He really was rather cute.

Groaning, the alien on the couch slowly turned his head and blinked. It was only now that Rose noticed he had brilliant green irises, and in some very strange way, it was a single eye that stared at you, even if there were two pupils in it. It was shaped a bit like a figure eight, so there was only a thin strip of eyeball connecting the two orbs. Now the eyes/eye widened.

Thinking that he might be scared of her, Rose tried to make her voice sound as friendly as possible. "Don't be afraid, little guy, I'm not gonna hurt you." She made a few chirping noises with her lips, the way she usually attracted cats.

"Uhm...that's nice. Although I'm kinda worried that you took my clothes."

To Rose's credit, it only took her two seconds to scramble back against the TARDIS console.

"You...you talk!" (Rose usually took her companion duties, aka Pointing Out The Obvious, very seriously.)

The blue animal sat slowly up on the seats and gave her a bemused smile. "It's one of my habits," he admitted. Then he winced and gingerly touched the bump on his head. "Ouch. Judging by that headache, that bump must be the size of my own skull." He gave Rose a look and then raised an eye ridge. "And judging by you gawking at me as if I had grown a second head, apparently it is.'

"What are you?" Rose finally managed, working herself back into something resembling poise. It wasn't the first weird alien she had encountered, so there wasn't any actual reason to freak out about it. His light voice sounded pleasantly normal even, like a young human male in his early twenties, maybe. Now she could also recall some nonsense the Doctor had spouted earlier about talking milk tea or something. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"You're not a cow, are you?"

There was a bit of a pause.

Finally, the alien said: "You're not from round here, huh?" The creature looked around, as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. "Then again, I don't actually know where here is, so maybe you are." He noticed Rose still staring at him and cocked his head. "What, you've never seen a Mobian before?" He accompanied that question with a grin to make clear it was a joke, but Rose didn't reciprocate. Instead, she stared at him. By now she was getting quite good at it.

"Mobian. Is that what you are?"

"Uhm, yeah." The grin had vanished in favour of a more awkward expression. "You humans usually call us Sapients, though. Well. That, or 'furry little bastards', depending on who you ask."

The blonde girl nodded. Sapient. As in, homo sapiens, intelligent. That made sense, then. It meant that on this planet, the animals had learned to talk.

"So...what should I call you, then? Mobian, Sapient or Furry Little Bastard?" She made an attempt at a smile. This alien seemed friendly enough and not averse to a joke or two. As she had hoped, he grinned.

Then he stuck out a tan-furred hand. "I suggest 'Sonic'. Sonic the Hedgehog. Nice to meet you, alien girl!"

xxx

Elsewhere, introductions weren't going quite as smoothly.

"Well, well, well." A rather large but tall man, whose physique suggested somebody who had sat on wall and now needed royal assistance to be put together again, was pacing the floor like a tiger in charge of the butchery storeroom. He was also stroking his rather absurd giant moustache that called a sort of evil walrus in mind, especially since he was otherwise bald. In a very unwise moment of fashion choices, he had apparently decided that a skin-tight red frock with yellow lapels and black jodhpurs and boots would look good on him. To top it off, he was wearing a pair of round sunglasses that hid his small eyes completely. He stopped fingering his facial hair long enough to grin and rub his hands instead. "Well, well, well."

"Haven't seen one around, sorry."

"What?" The grin vanished and the large man frowned.

"A well," the Doctor replied cheerily. The fact that he was currently strapped to some kind of operating table didn't seem to bother him. "Of course, if you were looking for one to offer me a glass of water - or even better, maybe a cuppa Earl Grey, would be lovely - I'd be happy with the tab sort."

Very slowly, his mustachioed captor brought one of his gloved hands up and pinched the skin over his enormous red nose. "Your imminent demise does not seen to dampen your mood. Wonderful. I have a feeling you'll be about as annoying as that pesky hedgehog," he muttered sourly.

The Doctor opened his mouth. Then he shut it again. Finally:

"Hedgehog?"

He had to admit, in between "I finally have you where I wanted, ha-ha!" and/or "EXTERMINATE!" that was a new one.

"Never mind." The fat man waved a hand in an annoyed way.

"Oh, but I mind everything."

"Then mind your gabble," his captor shot back without missing a beat, and the Doctor couldn't help but grin. Here was somebody who knew how to banter. Next, though, he winced as suddenly the bands that wound around his wrists and ankles tightened uncomfortably and he decided that, just for once, driving his company mad with talking might not be the wisest option.

In fact, he was actually rather grateful for the fact that unlike the last time he had been restrained by an evil scientist, this time he had been allowed to keep his jacket and shirt on. Honestly, the fangirls didn't need more fodder.

"Eggpawns, search his pockets." The Doctor turned his head as two bulky, squat robots with spherical bodies (not unlike his captor, he couldn't help noticing) ambled towards him and started patting him down and rifling through his clothes. For a moment he was glad that he had left his coat with the transdimensional pockets in the TARDIS, otherwise this could have taken quite a while.

"Hmm." The other man looked over the contents. "A piece of string, a key, a pair of glasses, a bag with very ancient jelly babies, a wallet claiming you're..." he frowned, "...my mother, apparently. Any explanation for that?"

Yes. My psychic paper thinks this is funny. The Doctor shook his head. The paper usually appeared to people as the ID of some kind of local authority to grant him access to places where people didn't want him nosing about. He could only deduce from that that there was no authority (but one) that his captor particularly respected.

"Next, a rubber duck..." the moustache man shot him a funny look at that, which the Doctor returned innocently, "And finally, something interesting." He held up a silver tool. "Mind explaining what this is?"

"A device for warming tea?" the Doctor asked with little hope. Anyone who could have programmed a transmat with such accuracy that he had been beamed straight into his current manacles was no technology freshman. By now the space-traveller was becoming rapidly convinced that he had been lucky enough to be kidnapped by the local evil genius. Next, he was already gasping with pain as his handcuffs tightened enough to nearly crush his wrists for a moment.

"Care to try that again?" the moustache asked kindly.

"Ow. Yes. It's my sonic screwdriver."

For some reason, that seemed to have been definitely the wrong answer.

xxx

"'Rose', huh?" For some reason, the name made the hedgehog smile.

"Yeah. Rose Tyler, in full."

"Nice name." He nodded, then looked around. "Did you bring me here? On that topic, where is 'here'?"

"It's the TARDIS. The spaceship of my friend." Her stomach suddenly knotted as she remembered she wasn't supposed to chat with some hedgehog but had to find the Doctor. She tried to reply quickly. "I found you outside unconscious and took you in. Just after that those jellyfish robots showed up and kidnapped my friend, so I think that was a good idea."

"Klagen eggbots?" Sonic shivered. "In that case, thank you. If they had teleported me, I'd probably be dead already."

"What?!" The blonde girl jumped up, horrified. "They took the Doctor! We have to get him back!"

"Relax!" The hedgehog's bright green eyes had widened at her forceful reaction. "These things belong to Robotnik and the only one he wants dead in particular is me. Your friend is probably a prisoner. We can get him out."

"Can you?" Her blue eyes showed a flash of hope, but also some doubt. It wasn't often that somebody half your size promised to play the hero.

"Uh-huh." Sonic shrugged. "Before that, though, shoes back, please. And gloves." He shifted a bit uncomfortably. It wasn't that Mobian males were generally embarrassed to be seen without clothing, but it was still something one wouldn't generally do and he felt just a tiny bit awkward, even if not threatened. Rose was a harmless human female, as far as he could tell. The way she looked, Shadow would probably have a Maria-attack the moment he saw her. Sonic rubbed his bump again. "Any idea why your spaceship knocked me out? I was just running through the zone and something suddenly appeared. I thought I'd dodged it, but then I think I hit an invisible wall or something."

"That could have been the forcefield. The TARDIS sometimes activates it, it's like a bubble around it. But usually she only flicks it on for incoming missiles or something..."

"Incoming missiles, huh?" the hedgehog chuckled. "Well, that explains that. Now, just before we get going, I'm just curious why you took my stuff," he said, pulling on one of his loose white gloves and letting it snap into place.

"Uhm..." Rose shifted. "Well, I was kinda checking whether you had a collar, you know?"

"A collar?" Sonic looked puzzled.

"Yeah, like, you know, with a number of your owner I could call."

"Owner," the hedgehog deadpanned and Rose couldn't help but sense that she wasn't doing much for intergalactic diplomacy. She waved her hands a bit helplessly.

"Look, I'm terribly sorry, but when I found you I thought you were someone's pet..."

This time, the hedgehog visibly flinched.

"Uh. Ah. Uhm. Do yourself a favour and don't ever call a Mobian that again. Please?"

"Okay, I won't. I'm sorry, I'm from another planet." She sighed. "Calling... Sapients like you a 'pet' is rude here, yeah?"

Now it was Sonic who shifted. "I guess you could say that. The last human who did so publicly was thrown by the wolves."

"Don't you mean to the wolves?" Rose knew she should technically be running around to save the Doctor, but couldn't help herself. "And not for real, I hope."

"No, by. Into a swimming pool, that is, and quite literally."

"Ah," Rose managed. She couldn't help but wonder whether the human/freaky talking animal relations weren't quite the best on Mobius.

"Well, then!" Sonic clapped his hands and gave her a grin. "Best get going, shall we? That the exit?" He asked, striding down the ramp that led to the doors of the TARDIS.

"Yeah, but wait! The TARDIS protects us while we're inside, but the robots could still be out there!"

Sonic nodded, reaching up to grab the door knob and looked outside. "Yes. Yes, they are," was all he said before calmly walking outside.

"Then don't-!" Rose began running up to the doorway, but stopped. As she was speaking, the small hedgehog had suddenly launched himself at the closest robot with a physics-defying jump that took him to nearly thrice his own height into the air. Within fractions of a second, he had curled up in a spinning blue buzzsaw and crashed into one of the Doctor's kidnapper's metallic brethren, tearing the thing in half. It gave a small explosion and Rose ducked back into the entryway to shield herself from the flying fragments, but couldn't take her eyes off the hedgehog. He had used the force of the explosion to catapult himself towards his next target, never once touching ground as he destroyed the second and then the third one. He seemed to be almost dancing as he flipped over and around in the air, grinning as he whirled and kicked with deadly grace.

Within ten seconds the last robot had exploded and he landed lightly on his feet again. "Well, that's that. Now... you trying to catch flies there?"

Rose snapped her mouth shut, just a tad bit annoyed at herself and at the cocky hedgehog.

"No. Uh, just...testing the atmosphere. Oh, and yeah, nice show."

"Thank you." He grinned even wider. Then his eyes doubled their size as he for the first time beheld the TARDIS from outside. She was, indeed, a wooden phone box about one square meter big and approximately two metres tall, completed with a police phone on the door.

Rose sighed and waited while Sonic performed what she had come to mentally label the 'companion dance'. It was relatively simple and consisted mainly of four steps, those being

1) double take,

2) open door, step inside,

3) open door, step outside, look up/down,

4) merry-go-round-the-box and finally-

"It's-"

"-bigger on the inside. Yes, I know," Rose finished for Sonic, giving him a weak smile. "My friend is kind of special."

"Actually, I was about to point out it's blue. I like the colour." The cobalt hedgehog grinned up at her, and Rose couldn't help but feeling that maybe she had picked up someone special as well.

"Also, don't worry about your friend too much, I know this model," he continued, gesturing toward the robot remains. "If these were the Klagen that kidnapped him, then I have a pretty good idea where he is. They don't teleport their captives very far and in this zone there's only one prison fortress, so we should have him out fairly soon."

"How do you know all this?" Rose asked, bemused. She didn't suspect him as such, but if there was someone who strangely knew a lot about your enemy and was all eager to help you without reward, taking you straight into the bad guy's lair in the process, then you couldn't help but feel just a little suspicious. After travelling with the Doctor for quite a while, Rose was anything but naive. She might not have been as brilliant as him, but the time-traveller rarely chose his human companions with the IQ of a brain-damaged cucumber, either.

When the hedgehog did not look at her when he replied, her unease intensified. Sonic stared into the distance. "If you have to know, two years ago it was me that got kidnapped by them."

"Didn't you say if this Robotnik ever got hold of you you'd be dead?" Rose pointed out, trying to keep her tone neutral. This alien's story wasn't adding up and she was mentally preparing to dash back into the TARDIS. But when he looked at her again, she froze.

"No," he said. His eyes had clouded over and she could see the amused sparkle in them had all but vanished, the hedgehog looking...haunted now. "Back then he only made me wish I was dead."

"I'm...I'm sorry," was all she could manage to say. Privately, she thought nobody could play-act the flash of pain that she thought to have briefly seen in his eyes. Her words seemed to snap Sonic out of it.

"That's okay." He smiled at her, suddenly his friendly expression back in place. "Thank you. But it wasn't your fault and a long time ago. And now, what do you say, let's kick some robot and rescue your friend?" Once more, the grin seemed to reach his ears.

She blinked. "Uh...sure." Mentally she shook her head. Before, the only person she'd known that could go from "The Time War killed all my people... I am the last of my species." to "Hey, have you ever been to the Candy Planet?!" in seconds had been the Doctor, but this hedgehog was serious competition. She had to admit that overall, the two seemed actually rather similar, and wasn't that a bit disturbing.

"Right," Sonic said at this point, rubbing his chin. "Only problem is, we're in the middle of nowhere in Green Hill Zone and I'm not entirely sure how to get you away from here. You can't fly that box... thing... ship, can you?"

"No," Rose admitted. "Don't you, like, have a car or something?" she asked, feeling slightly ridiculous. After all, the last hedgehog she'd seen had been stuck to the underside of a car tire, not driving in one.

"Nope. Myself, I run." He shook his head, the quills on the backside rustling. Then he snipped his fingers. "Ooooh, brilliant idea. Wait right here."

"Where are you go-?" Rose started, but again she was cut off. In a startling dust cloud, the hedgehog suddenly had departed, leaving a blazing blue trail to where he disappeared over a grassy hill in the distance. Almost immediately, the rumble of a sonic boom washed over Rose who recognized the sound from when the Doctor had taken her to see the first run of the Concorde.

"-ing,"she finished, but almost swallowed her tongue when Sonic was already back by her side, a monumental screeching sound and a good twenty metre long new rut in the ground testament to his braking skills. To her horror, the hedgehog appeared to be brandishing a fold-up wheelchair.

"Borrowed that from a human hospital in Station Square," he said non-chalantly, forcing the thing apart and to stand. Then he gestured at the seat as if it was the door to a royal limousine.

"Well, Rose Tyler," he began, grinning, "Ready for the ride of your life?"

To be continued...