The Traveller

I'd like to apologise to all my readers, old and new, for the lack of writing in recent times. I've been very busy writing stories that may one day be published properly, which, I'm sorry to tell you, takes precedence over my fan fiction stories. But I'm back with a new story! I've put the prologue and chapter one together, since neither are long enough on their own. This still isn't a long update, but all it's meant to do is introduce the story. I know I said that I would update everything at once, but this is all I have and if I make you wait for everything then you'll be waiting for a few months. Anyway, to the description!

This is a story about my own Time Lord character. It is set in the Doctor Who universe, but the Doctor will only make small appearances and is most certainly not a main character. My Time Lord, known as the Traveller, has a fully-functioning TARDIS, but usually doesn't have a full-time companion. I hope you enjoy this!

Oh, and I also changed my name. It's still me, Dark Fire VI, but a few people were getting mixed up between me and someone whose name sounds like mine. My new name means "Dragon Slayer" in Japanese.

Prologue: The Untempered Schism

The boy was walking. This was all he knew. All he felt was the thud of his footfalls jolting his body with each step and the blindfold across his eyes.

Some are inspired…

That was what his friend and mentor had told him about the trial he was about to face.

Some go mad…

He hoped beyond all hope that this wasn't his ending.

Suddenly, the boy was brought to a halt. He felt the blindfold being untied by an unseen hand. His hearts began to beat steadily. Thump, thump, thump, thump. Thump, thump, thump, thump. The moment seemed to stretch on forever, the unseen hand moving slower than anything the boy had ever known. Finally, the piece of blinding cloth fell away from his eyes.

And some run away.

"What do you see?" a voice demanded. The boy didn't know how to respond. He was staring into an object that resembled a mirror, but he could see no reflection. Inside the frame was what seemed like a swirling cloud of blue, but somehow he didn't think it was an innocent cloud. He felt a strange pull toward the vortex, not in his body, but in his mind. He didn't know whether to let it pull him in or whether to resist.

"I-I don't… I don't know," he replied, struggling to find the words to speak.

"That is only to be expected," he heard the voice reply.

"I… I'm sorry?" he asked. The man's response hadn't made any sense. He tried to pull his eyes from the vortex, but he couldn't.

"When young Time Lords first look into the Untempered Schism, they often don't know how to describe what they see," the voice explained. The boy suddenly felt great pain and screamed.

"Yes, the Untempered Schism can have that effect," the voice said, but the boy barely heard it over the pain.

The boy suddenly broke away from the Untempered Schism. He panted heavily for a moment, recovering from the experience. Then, without so much as a thought, he turned and ran.

And some run away, the voice in his mind repeated. Did he really want to run away? He looked back at the Untempered Schism. What did I just see? Then he realised he already knew. The Time Vortex. With that realisation in mind, he ran.

Chapter One: The TARDIS

The boy came to a halt after hours of running. He had come to his destination: one of Gallifrey's famous TARDIS factories. He had decided that he wanted to leave; to see the universe. All of space and time at my fingertips.

Standing on a ridge, he overlooked the TARDIS factory. Below him were rows upon rows of shining silver pods, all the same, all TARDISes. He began to run down the slope of the ridge, toward the silver time machines. He wasted no time, knowing full well that he was being pursued. He plunged into the field of TARDISes and made for the centre. He had once been on a tour of this factory when he was young, and knew that all the best and most recent models of TARDIS were kept in the middle. If he was running away and stealing a TARDIS anyway, he might as well do it in style. He ran on, panting with the exertion, looking at all the individual models. They all looked the same, Type 1 or Type 50, and the only way to tell them apart was by the little stands next to them with their product information on. He didn't have time to look at each one, so he just glanced at every other stand's Type and Mark Numbers.

He began to pay more attention to the stands once the Type Numbers reached 50. He wasn't up to date on the TARDIS models, but he knew that he couldn't be far off from the centre. 55… 57… 60… 65… 64. He stopped and backtracked when he saw the number 64. He went back one TARDIS and looked closely at the stand. Type 64 Mk.3, it read. This must be the best in the whole factory.

"He went this way!" called a voice as the boy read the exact details of the TARDIS. With a quiet gasp, he tripped up as he began to run away. When he picked himself up, he pushed open the doors of the shining silver pod and jumped inside, shutting them quickly. He pressed his ear up against the door and listened intently as footsteps grew in volume.

"Where is he?" called a voice.

"He can't have gone far! That way!" answered another. The volume of the footsteps reached its highest point, then began to recede again. The boy breathed a sigh of relief. They had passed him.

He turned around for the first time, and saw the interior of the TARDIS. He was shocked by how… bland it was. He had been told by his friends to expect a large console in the middle of a huge, arched room. Instead, he was in a blank, silver-walled pod. It wasn't even bigger on the inside. In the middle of the tiny pod was a silver podium. He shuffled over to it and took a look at the waist-height podium. It was unadorned but for a single fingerprint scanner. He had heard about this before. TARDISes, when first made, had to be "bonded" to their user, after which anyone who knew how could pilot it. He assumed that the fingerprint scanner was how this would work, and pressed his thumb firmly to it. Immediately, the TARDIS sprang to life. Dozens of robotic limbs stretched out from unseen places and scanned a different part of his body. Before he even knew what was happening, the scanners had disappeared again.

Suddenly he felt an odd pulling sensation that filled both his mind and body. He closed his eyes and screwed them up against the pain it caused, but it disappeared no sooner than it had started. When he opened his eyes, he could only gasp.

It was bigger on the inside. A large, multi-buttoned console dominated the centre, with a glowing tube which spread out to become the roof of the TARDIS. The tube glowed blue and, on the roof, formed many blue vein-like lines inside the clear glass. The walls of the console room were made up of interlocking triangles, the sides of which extended slightly from the wall, and the floor of the console room was grated, allowing a view of the blue power source below. Running down the steps, he saw a doorless opening and stepped through it. All of a sudden, he found he was in a bedroom. It was decorated like the console room, with a double bed by the back wall. He ran back through the archway and found he was now in a bathroom, with a powerful shower and a similar theme to the other rooms.

It didn't make sense. He had just run through the same door he had come into the bedroom through, and ended up in a new room. He went back through and was now in some kind of entertainment facility, with a large projection on one of Gallifrey's most popular programmes. This is pretty cool, but I wish I could get back to the console room, he thought to himself. He went back through exactly the same door and, lo and behold, he was in the console room again! Does this thing operate on thoughts? He asked himself.

A sudden realisation hit him: he was being hunted, and soon the Time Lords would find him.

"I'll explore you later," he said to the door. Then, he ran up to the console and took a look at the buttons. It was frightfully complicated, and he hadn't the first idea how to operate it. He pressed a button that looked likely to be the ignition, but immediately wished he hadn't as a loud bang issued from the console. Great! Now they know I'm here!

He quickly looked again at the console and tried to find the correct button. He knew that one false move would be very, very bad. There was always at least one button that would do something stupid, like play a rock song at full volume. He looked at a set of numbered buttons next to a big lever. That seemed likely. 1960, he typed using the numbered buttons. He guessed that a date would take him somewhere, though it didn't exactly seem accurate. What about the day, month and time? Still, this was his best idea for operation without looking at the instructions, which he certainly didn't have time to do. Upon entering the 0, the TARDIS began to emit an unusual sound that sounded half like wheezing and half like groaning. The TARDIS began to rumble lightly, kicking into life for the first time since it was manufactured and tested. The Time Lords outside were just running past the boy's TARDIS again as it began to fade from existence.

"No!" they called, diving at the door. But they collapsed on the ground: the TARDIS was gone, and with it the boy.

Inside, the boy held onto a rail on the side of the console. The rumbling had grown stronger as soon as the TARDIS had entered the time stream, but it only lasted a matter of seconds before the rumbling stopped completely. The boy let out a sigh of relief, for it seemed the TARDIS had worked properly. Or had it? He looked down at his hands, which were white after clenching the rail so tightly. Instead of the small hands he knew, he saw the bigger hands of an adult. Examining the rest of his body, he realised that the time stream had aged his body significantly, so he became an adult in appearance. He certainly felt more mature, but still retained some of his childish personality. The boy had become a man. He rushed over to a mirror, where he eyed his short, blonde hair and checked that his eyes were still green. His face was the same as always, if a little more stretched with age. He had heard that regeneration could change your appearance, but this was something different. He had aged, not regenerated.

"But why?" he asked himself. It seemed, however, that the answer would only come with natural aging and wisdom.

The time had come for the boy to reveal himself to the world. He crossed over to the doors and swung them open, expecting to see somewhere in 1960. He couldn't possibly have expected what he actually found.

So, where do you think the boy could possibly have ended up? And why was he just called "boy?" The answer to the second question is just that he hasn't named himself yet, but you'll have to wait for chapter two for the answer to the first. Feel free to guess where he is in the reviews.