Doctor Who the Eternal Champion-Book 2 ch. 1: Since You've Been Gone....

The Never Ending Quest - episode 18535

"Now that you've set a day what about the time where exactly will it take place?" E'eysha asked the Doctor, smiling a fey smile.

"Oh, I was thinking about...." the Doctor begins, glancing over at the significant other member of this upcoming event.

That's when the telephone on the Timelord's TARDIS begins to ring. Now, being that it is wasn't supposed to be used for idle chatter, that meant whoever was on the other end probably had something serious to talk about.

"Creator, it's been a long time," Inquirer says softly as the Doctor goes over slowly to answer it.

Inquirer

It's been an interesting, relatively quiet ten years here. In that period of time my family has grown by one in the manner that I never had thought possible before coming to Terra Prime. My mother given birth to a beautiful boy baby she and my father had named Gabriel. I had talked the Doctor to announce our wedding later at my baby brother's birthday party later on here, but if that telephone call happened to be from the Rules and Agents I believe that we'll have to put things on hold.

As important as our business would be, the business of Rules and Agents takes precedence. Heck, considering the magnitude of that business it would be utterly foolish and petty to complain. Besides, I and the others are rather looking forward to some excitement.

Oh, not like we've been sitting on our laurels doing nothing.. While the whole world of Terra Prime was on a slow, forty year journey to modernization (could have done it in ten, but the growing pains would have been horrible to see) I and the others have been doing our part. It's not an easy upgrade here on Terra Prime in the year 1511 AD (local calendar), but we (the Champions and such) do what we can. I, an Ethiopian Marquise, have been aiding my father (sometimes known to his friends as Count Zero) improve the living standards of who live on the land granted to us by Regent Malachi. Various Freds and Astras have brought forth new children into the world and the elders of the John/Thessamer/D'Honaire clans are pleased and proud grandparents because of that.

On matters closer to home, I and the others have been helping the Doctor once in a while with his classes. Not that he's not up to the task and doesn't have a lot to teach some very talents elfin children (some of whom have proven to actually be the re-incarnated elves from a universe which mimicked an old black and white independent 20th century comic book named Elfquest....long story....don't ask).

 

The task we are called on to do is rather simple, when you get down to it. We were basically there to be taxi service at times for Jarlath's group or help in a rescue effort for several kidnapped Freds and Astras. The meat of what happened and the part we played in it can be found in these files:

16629

We did our part, anyway….

Finally learned what had been going on in Nantucket. Boy, that had been frustrating waiting for ten years for answers. Inuit AI that I was, I still find that I'm curious by nature…

Hrmph.

Anyway, with the TARDIS a bit banged up from everything and needing a month's repair at least before she could be ready for inter-reality flight. We decided to hold our wedding here in Nantucket. Was a lovely town and a great place for a honeymoon.

So we made arrangements and sent out invitations. One was for that Elder Champion couple, Morgana and Rugen. I was wanting to discuss a few things with them (satisfy some burning questions from last time). That and I was hoping they could help me track down that one Betty I remembered (vaguely) talking with after the Mistress bushwhacked me.

She was able to do that, amazingly enough! That and she was able to keep Avon in line. Boy, what a freaking ass that man can be. Betty and Ragan are sympathetic towards the guy, but I can only take so much of his crap before I regret inviting him….

Never mind.

What finally happened on the wedding day (done in the style of my religion) was interesting! It happened soon after Betty and Ragan had found us a wedding gift (a bottle of wine which Shefox Alicia helped them pick out) when some more trouble came down the pike.

Another wedding guest by the name of Slith (always wanted to meet a Draconian from that AD&D game, Dragonlance) had a fit of visions about some upcoming quest that Jarlath's group. It had tipped them off that their quest was going to be more difficult that first believed. A dragon had been kidnapping various dragonslayers from different realities, turning them into loyal and fanatical dragon women who he'd use to sweep the land (and with those dragonslayer's training under the dragon women's control made that less insane than it sounded). Jarlath's group slew that dragon, stopped that plot (but finding out that the dragon had been a transformed human they'd been out to rescue)….. Long, sad story that shows that sometimes things can go terribly wrong.

We, on the other hand have a task to take care of. Our TARDIS got fixed up by Rassilon, somehow, and ready for service. And service we're going to be putting it through as we go out to try to save the life of a Galifreyan legend! A fellow by the name of Omega!

Now THIS is going to be a honeymoon vacation that's going to be FUN!

We land on Dr. Who's Earth and begin do what we can him tracking down. Ragan and Betty, as usual, are able to use their knowledge of that British scifi to help. Being that it has been something like ten years since they've seen this "Arc of Infinity", however, we aren't sure just how effective they'll be, though. That said, we aren't able to just materialize at the spot which Omega is based out of because of that (Betty and Ragan don't remember enough). They are able, however, to find the "real life" version of police station that one of the stories main characters went to in order to report a missing person (Colin Frazer). Per typical Doctor Who style, my husband and Ragan go right in and just ask the police if any such reports had been filed yet.

.....

Don't look at me like that. It's the way this world works, understand. That approach probably wouldn't have worked as well back on my world back on version of Earth....but....

As it turns out, the person (a Robin Stuart) who was going to file that report walked through the door just a moment after the Doctor and Ragan had. That proved a bit awkward (police might wonder about what total strangers are doing asking about a missing person who hasn't been reported yet), understand, but my group manages to get through by impersonating either family members of the missing person (Ragan as Mr. Frazer's cousin, Tegan Jovanka) or as concerned friends (a group of tourists who've contracted an odd tourist business). Point in fact, the Doctor and Ragan sound more convincing in their story than Colin does with his to the police....

Okay, here is what has been going on here through Robin's words...


Robin

I'm not sure what it is about these people that makes me feel like I can tell them the whole story when I couldn't tell the police for fear they'd think me mad. Maybe it's the fact that they all look so odd it makes what's happened seem just a tiny bit less strange. Maybe it's just the look on the white-haired guy's face, like he's willing to believe anything I've got to tell him. Maybe it's just that when something like this happens to you, you've got to talk about it to somebody. OK, maybe they'll think I'm nuts. At least I'll have got it off my chest.

"I suppose it's my fault, really," I begin. "Colin wanted to call ahead and reserve a hostel room, but I said 'No, it's fine, we'll just find somewhere when we get there'... and, of course, everywhere was full. So I found this place where I figured we could sleep. An old crypt, with a pumping house attatched to it."

The red-haired woman who apparently isn't actually Colin's cousin sits up and looks especially interested at that. "Could you show us the place?" "Yeah," I say, although I really don't feel inclined to go back to that place.

"Go on," says the white-haired guy -- the Doctor, I remember he calls himself. Wonder what he's a doctor of?

"Well, we bedded down for the night -- the place seemed deserted -- and I fell asleep right away. But something woke me; I think it was a flash of light, but I'm not sure. And when I got up, Colin was gone. Just... completely vanished."

"And?" prompts the Doctor gently.

"And this is the part you're not going to believe," I sigh. "I got out my torch and went looking for him, and found this weird stone thing, sort of a big oblong stucture. I'd almost swear it wasn't there before. There was some sort of a noise and this door opened up in it, and out came a... some sort of a creature. Some big lizard-thing, I don't know what it was. It fired some kind of... of ray gun or something at me, and it missed. But it disintigrated a stone statue, I saw it! Well, I went running into the pump house and out the service exit, and I... I didn't know what to do! I suppose I could have gone to the police then, but I'd lost my passport, and I... Well, anyway, I hid in the bushes until daylight, and then I went back to look for Colin. And I found him, but he, he was like a zombie! All pale and just dead. He just kept staring straight ahead, like he didn't even see me, didn't know who I was. Just kept doing something with the pumping machinery. I don't know what. But it was all too much for me. I went running off, decided to go to the police, after all, and, well, you know the rest."

I look around at their faces, waiting to see whether they look ready to send for the burly men carrying the straightjacket and the stretcher. But they don't look like they disbelieve me. They look weirdly like they've just heard exactly what they expected to hear. Who are these people?

"Show us," says one of the women I haven't been properly introduced to.


Now, while that might seem confusing, it wasn’t to us. Colin had the bad luck of not only getting a spot where Omega had chosen to set up shop for his return to this reality but getting caught by Omega and put under mind control so he could be a servant. Colin, now something of a zombie, is helping Omega set up equipment that’ll make it possible for him to get a living, normal body back. Omega, you see, is the legendary Timelord who was thought killed in an experiment that allowed his fellow Timelords to harness the power of a black hole (powering their world and their TARDISes) but in reality got sucked into an antimatter universe. Was able to survive through sheer force of will, but in the end the only thing left of him by the time of his first breakout was just that....his will. That and he had come to believe that he'd been abandoned by his people...so he wasn't the most stable of people any more.... His physical body (long having been encased in some kind of protective armor) had been evaporated or something by the harsh environment about him. He could have fashioned another body of the material about him, but it would have been of antimatter. He could temporarily change antimatter to matter, but until recently had not the means of making it permanent. This Colin got swept up into this scheme which would have involved a stolen Galifreyan mechanism to fuel a process that would give Omega a normal, living Timelord body (the “blueprints” which would produce an exact duplicate of “my” Doctor....in his fifth regeneration). The problem here is that....this process wouldn’t have worked, according to both the Doctor and Rassilon. That body that Omega would have gotten would turn back into antimatter....in a matter universe.....

The resultant explosion would have destroyed an Earth. It wouldn’t have been the Doctor’s Earth that got destroyed. Why? The fact here is that the Doctor travels into the future and into the past....and never was there a time where his Earth got destroyed in such a disaster. Never. No, the thing of it is that no matter what, this particular Earth is safe. With the deal of being a Champion (who's past can't be altered to unmake them after they take up the job) it means instead the antimatter blast will, if it should happen, will be directed to another nearby parallel universe's Earth. Know that sounds draconian, but that's how it is. The Rules and Agents, I've been told, wouldn't like to have to do it....but they're under their own limitations (i.e. if they tried to directly intervene for a "happy ending" their would be bloody Hell to pay between the Offices of the Celestrials).

Well, we are able to do for Omega what his process can’t do for himself with a magical wish provided to us by that one Elder Champion, Rugen.

We managed to do that, despite certain things like: Robin changing his mind about not wanting to follow is into the crypt and trying to help us, Omega's reptilian guard, and Omega not initially believing that we weren't there to help him. We were able to wrap things up pretty nicely if I do say so myself but.....

We ran into yet another mystery whilst wrapping things up.

Somehow we came across an odd silver pendant of a female fairy that actually was more than just that. It was actually a real fairy woman, magically frozen into that form....

We, after a short stayover in Nantucket (where I and the Doctor....at least....were able to finish up some business like the "wedding night" stuff), were off again. We determined that the best thing we could use to free this fairy woman from her prison was the Hand of Omega from Dr. Which's universe...

We arrived there with the hopes of using that mysterious thing before a bunch of Daleks were fated to get their manipulators on it....when somehow an analogous Doctor (7th regeneration) and "his" companion (Ace) showed up...

This could be very interesting.....


MSG

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1