Written by Jay "Arcalian" McIntyre, HTMLized (and Lithified) by Lillith "Pete-fan" Skye Rael
Now the stranger was concentrating fiercely, and it was Mr. Gone's turn
to look on.
"Can you keep the Doctor from manipulating events here?" Gone asked
him.
"If I know he's trying to, yes, " the stranger whispered without
opening his eyes. "And once they get to the Labyrinth, which was
constructed by me and my...minion, he won't be able to affect the
environment."
Ace looked back. Maxieman or whatever was still holding the blobs at
bay, but more of them were coming all the time. It was only a matter of
time until he was overwhelmed. She turned back to the Doctor. "D'you
think it's Fenric?" she whispered. She was deathly afraid that he had come
back to use her again.
But the Doctor shook his head. "Fenric would be more subtle than
this," he replied, "I'm still trying to work it out. Go help the...purple
individual...deal with the creatures. I've got to find a solution." he
began to delve into his pockets. Ace shrugged and turned away, tugging out
a can of Nitro Nine.
Joel woke up at the bottom of the hill. His ribs hurt. He sat up slowly. The monster was nowhere to be seen, though he thought he could hear it shouting in the distance. He started climbing back up the hill, noting the strange handholds conveinently placed in it.
Ace chucked another can of nitro at the blobs. They spattered to
bits.
Slashing throught the things a few feet ahead of her, the Maxx looked
back. "You fight well! You are a worthy ally of the Maxx!"
"Charmed, I'm sure," Ace muttered.
The Doctor was emptying his pockets. He fished out his second
incarnation's recorder. "No, that won't do," he muttered. Then he came
across his spoons. He smiled briefly, then with a sigh put them aside as
well. At that point, Joel climbed up. "Ah good, young fellow." said the
Doctor. "Perhaps you can explicate this strrrrrrrrrange chain of events?"
Joel looked at the odd little man for a moment, then replied, "I was
escaping from a Sattelite, don't ask me why, we don't have time. This blue
box crashed into my escape pod."
"Oops," muttered the Doctor.
Joel blinked sleepily at him. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing, do go on." the Doctor gave him his toothy grin.
"Uh, right. Anyway, I woke up and this wierdo field was surrounding
the box and my pod. I tried building a gizmo to short it out. Then this
purple guy," he pointed at the Maxx, who was still slashing away, "broke the
thing and started chasing me. I fell off that cliff, woke up and climed
back up. And here we are. Where is here, and who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor, the young girl throwing the bombs is Ace, and I'm just
as much in the dark as you are as to what this place is. Perhaps our purple
friend can explain the situation...if we survive."
"At least he's not Barney," Joel pointed out.
The Doctor snorted.
("Barney?" Benny would ask later. The Doctor and Ace assured her that
she was better off not knowing.)
Ace was running out of nitro, and the beasties were still coming. The
Maxx was holding his own, but there were simply too many of them. Deciding
that she didn't want to run out of nitro in two adventures back to back, she
reached deeper into her rucksack and pulled out an Omega-Powered Baseball
Bat (TM Ben Aaronovitch and the BBC 1996, all rights reserved, blah blah
blah yakety smakety). She got to swinging.
The Doctor crept up to the Maxx. "Ace, hold them for a moment." she
nodded. The Doctor tapped Maxx on the shoulder. The Maxx turned around,
claws dripping with Isz-goop, and stared at him. The Doctor raised his hat
and trilled, "Grrrrreetings, I'm the Doctor, the girl with the bat is Ace.
Who are you?"
"I am Maxx. Ruler of this land.
And you are the fool that knocked me
off the ledge." the Maxx glared at him through his mask's eyeholes. The
Doctor returned the glare with his chilling alien stare, his blue eyes
fading to grey, then to a purple shot through with orange threads. The
Maxx, like so many before him, drew back from that stare. This little man
scared him in a way Mr. Gone never had.
The Doctor's eyes returned to normal. "Just an accident, I'm sure
you'll agree," he said, cheerily.
"Ur...of course," Maxx muttered.
"Vulcan...mind...meld," Joel whispered behind them scarcastically, in a
fairly good Kirk impression. Both the Doctor and the Maxx looked at him and
he shut up.
"And despite this young man's witticism, I'm sure he meant you no harm
either. Would you care to tell your side of the story? But quickly, my
dear Ace is badly outnumbered."
The Maxx stood sideways to the Doctor, with his head turned towards
him, while slashing Isz with one claw. "Ace fights well. I was missing my
Jungle Queen, Julia, when this blue box and this cheesy escape pod appeared
in front of me. There was this field about them. The field vanished, and
the dolt behind you was holding what I took to be a weapon. I destroyed it,
and chased him. I knocked him off the ledge, you ran into me and I fell on
top of him, climbed back up, and then the Iszes came."
Joel made no comment this time, but felt his sore ribs and winced.
The Doctor "hmmed" thoughtfully. "Some kind of dimensional
transference. Right, we have to get away from these...Iszes, and quickly.
I see they have no eyes. How can they detect us?"
An Isz landed on Maxx's shoulder, and he absently flicked it off. "In
the more mundane plane known as Earth, they can only smell. But here, they
can hear us as well, though they are too stupid to understand us."
The Doctor decided now was not the time to ask the Maxx about his own
dimensional travails. He looked down at the spoons and the recorder, then
his face lit up in a grin. "Tell me young man, are you familiar with the
pied piper?"
"The name's Joel, and sure." then he looked at the instruments. "You
can't be serious!"
"I'm quite serious Joel." the Doctor picked up the spoons.
"Roger Corman and Sandy Frank have conspired to take over my life,"
Joel muttered, but he picked up the Recorder and began to play. The Doctor
counterpointed him with the spoons.
The Isz stopped charging, and made a collective "MEEP?" then they
started following Joel and the Doctor as they lead them down the side of the
hill.
The Maxx stared. Ace burst out laughing.
Gone and the stranger's reactions are, alas, unprintable.
"At least they're still heading for the Labyrinth," Gone managed
eventually.
The stranger scowled, then popped the energy bubble that was levitating
Mr. Gone's head.
TO BE CONTINUED...
on to the next bit (not up yet)
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