And Then There Were Four

The Doctor - A New Companion

As I ran for my life, weaving in and out of dark New York alleys, I tried to remember how I got here.

Regeneration. It had happened again. A new body. I was younger. And I hated it. 

I had almost gotten used to gray hair, bushy eyebrows, and even glasses in my last form. (Almost. I still hated the glasses.)

Then I lost her. Sadie. My last companion. We were trapped in the asylum and...and she didn't make it out. I don't talk about her much anymore.

However, for about a month now, the TARDIS had seemingly sent me on a wild goose chase for a new companion. Well, if you can call not being able to find my TARDIS a goose chase. It's not very funny.

I must say though, it felt good, for the first time in a while, to be young again. For the past few regenerations I had been older, but my new location required a young agile body.

Sadly though, it seems that I have this younger body so that I could run from beasts trying to kill me.

ROOAAR. CLANG. It had run into a trash can. I ran faster. Around a corner. Under wet laundry. Down a staircase. Then I hit a dead end. Bracing myself, I turned around and faced the monster.

The beast stood at least 10 feet tall and was part man part bull. On it's top half, the bull half, it had two giant, ugly horns. While I didn't know what these monstrosity was, I knew one thing. They didn't have these on Gallifrey.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the beast roared in pain and ran toward something in the dead-end-alley. An arrow came from the opposite direction the bull-man was running and pierced the beast's right calf. The creature stumbled, attempted an awkward 180, inhaled, then exhaled a roasting line of fire in the direction the arrow had come from. Whoever shot that arrow was now dead, for sure.

However, the archer was too fast for the bull-man and was atop the creature's back unscathed before the flames had stopped. The archer slung the bow around the quiver, pulled out a bronze sword, and stabbed the beast straight through its carotid artery at the back of the bull-man's neck. That had to hurt. While the monster was bleeding out, simultaneously an arrow fired from behind the beast impaled the bull-man's eye as it turned.

The beast tried to put up a fight, but it had been weakened. The monster stumbled and tried to grab the first warrior who its on its neck before falling to the ground bleeding to death, powerless.

It all happened in a matter of minutes.

The first warrior, the one who had been on the creature's back, approached me. He was somewhat tall, athletically built, and carried more weapons than I could count. From what I could tell he had a bow, a sheath of arrows, a bronze sword, a gold sword, a two sided dagger that was part bronze and part gold with a dark iron tip, and a mace that looked pretty damn deadly. I bet he had some grenades in his belt too.

"Hey, how's it going?" he said as he spun his sword into its sheath.

"Well, not so good seeing how I was being chased by that... thing. What was it?"

"That was a minotarus ardeotus. A fire breathing Minotaur."

"Weak hide, strong temper." the second warrior finished, emerging from the shadows. This one was female and she only carried a bow with a sheath of arrows.

"We have been tracking it for a few days now. It just so happened to run across you while it was running from us. I'm Kendall, daughter of..." she faltered, "daughter of Hera, and this is--"

"Rascal," the boy introduced himself, "son of Ma-Ares. Who might you be?

"I'm the Doctor." I simply replied.