Axel Who: The Quantum Hero
Chapter 1: The Journey Begins
"So, how was your day" Nagissa asked. Tomoya, startled not by the question, but by the fact that he hadn't noticed she was following him, suddenly stopped walking.
"WOAH! When did you get there?"
"What, you mean you haven't noticed that I've been walking beside you this whole time?"Nagissa chuckled. They'd been walking for 15 minutes down the road from school that was surrounded by an orchid of apple tree blossoms.
"Oh, sorry, I've been a little out of it lately." Tomoya said.
"Oh, you're not coming down with something are you?" They continued walking down the road.
"No, no, I'm fine, I've just had a lot on my mind that's all." Tomoya didn't want Nagissa to worry about anything, not that there was anything to worry about.
"Phew! I'm glad. I wouldn't want you to get sick or anything." Nagissa exclaimed. "So, how was your day?"
"It was okay, I guess. Better than most day's really." As he said that, he noticed an odd throaty engine sound, but decided to ignore it.
"Good, I'm glad that you're having a good day." The noise got much louder and sounded much closer than it was before. "Uh, Tomoya do you hear…" Just as she was about to finish, a blue object blurred from its speed flew right in front of them, from their right side to their left, into the orchid, before they heard it crash. Tomoya and Nagissa, both shocked and surprised by the by the very odd, sudden, and mysterious event, stood staring into the direction the object went.
"Nagissa, you okay?" Tomoya asked, keeping an eye on the mysterious objects path of destruction.
"I'm fine. A little shaken, but fine." Nagissa said in a shaky voice."You?"
"Yeah, same here. What was that?" Tomoya, not waiting for an answer started to follow the trail of destruction the object left behind.
"Hey! Tomoya, where are you going? Whatever that was might be dangerous."
Tomoya was already off the road, and surrounded by newly broken tree branches when he turned around to answer. "Whatever that was someone might of gotten hurt or worse."
Nagissa, with a change of perspective on the situation, followed Tomoya down the path of broken tree limbs and tree stumps, till they reached an unexpected sight. What they saw was a huge blue box, a bit more than twice as tall as it was wide, on it's side in a newly made ditch. From what they could tell, it had a sign at the top of all four sides (one of them currently covered by the ground) that said "Police Box", 2 windows under that and a set of 6 other rectangles under that. It also had a lantern at the very top that was glowing and dissipating at the same rhythm as the odd alarm like sound it was giving off.
Tomoya and Nagissa walked closer to get a better look. "What do you think it is?" Nagissa asked nervously. They were close enough to touch it now.
"I don't know. Maybe it's a space pod full of evil aliens." He said, trying to either lighten up the mood, or prank Nagissa a little.
Nagissa, obviously not enjoying Tomoya's little joke jumped back a bit. "Not funny Tomoya."
Right after she spoke, the door of the box facing the sky burst open, letting out a heavy concentration of gas, and spooking both of the young adults before it to the point where they ran off to the nearest trees for cover. As they watched from their cover, what appeared to be a grappler hook, came flying out and onto the ground, before being retracted till it caught onto the boxes original base. After awhile of waiting for something else to happen, an old man of about 90 or so years with an odd red rob and shoulder pads, came climbing out. He had white hair, and a white mustache, and his shoulder pads had odd spherical symbols on them. Something else was odd about the old man too. After he came out he started screaming in agony, and he somehow changed from being one solid person to multiple versions of himself, everywhere, partially invisible, like a cloud of himself.
Tomoya and Nagissa, still behind their cover, stood there, shocked, and unsure what to do. "Tomoya, what's happening?" But before he could answer, the old man became one solid man again, kneeling on the ground, still seeming to be in terrible pain.
Both Tomoya and Nagissa, being of kind heart, ran over to the man to see if there was anything they could do to help him. The man, panting now, noticed the two of them instantly. "Oh, Hello." The man said. "Sorry about what you just witnessed. I know it can be quiet unpleasant to see."
"Are you okay? Do you need any help? We could take you to a hospital." Tomoya asked, ignoring his apology. The man looked up at him and Nagissa.
"No, no, I just need help getting that blue box over their back up before…" As the man started walking back to the box, he fell back to the ground and started screaming in pain again. Tomoya and Nagissa stood back, unsure what to expect. This time an odd formation of what appeared to be levitating broken pieces of glass appeared around the man as he screamed, which after 5 seconds, disappeared. "Ahhhhh….please….help…me." The man was now crawling to the big box.
"Sir, I really think you need to go to the hospital." Tomoya said as he prepared to help the man up.
"NO!" the man yelled, pushing Tomoya's hands away. "I can't go to the hospital. If I do the regeneration process will….Ahhhhhhhh!...Ahhhhhh!" the odd cloud effect started to occur again as the man screamed, but lasted less than 3 seconds.
"Look… here's the deal. I'm…dying okay. I'm dying…and the only way…to save me…is to get me back…in the Tardis." The man said in between agonizing breaths.
"Okay, fine." Tomoya said, moving in to help. "This blue box is the Tardis your talking about right?"
"Yes, yes. Now I need you and the girl to prop it up right first." Tomoya and Nagissa went over to the top of the box as instructed and, even though it was surprisingly heavy, they managed to get it onto its base.
"Good. Okay, now help me….Ahhhha..Ahhhhhh" the man started screaming again. This time, as he screamed, dozens of things happened at once. The cloud effect, not only occurred on him, but to Tomoya and Nagissa, the box, and even the entire orchid as well. But it wasn't just the cloud effect; the formation of moving, floating pieces of glass appeared everywhere and nowhere as well. Their were many images, as well, of what appeared to be some sort of alien warfare occurring on and outside of a huge red planet, of a man dying, coming back to life in the same and yet somehow different body, and dying again.
This alone would've been to much for Nagissa and Tomoya to take, making them want to run away from this madness to get to a safer place, hadn't an image of the man and what seemed to be his family appeared. The image showed him as a young man with what appeared to be his beautiful red haired young wife, and 3 adorable children. There were images of some of what seemed like their happiest moments, moments where they played games that Nagissa and Tomoya didn't recognize, moments when they went out on a picnic on a hill covered in red grass, surrounded by beautiful silver leaved trees, facing a beautiful giant city, surrounded by a giant almost invisible force field, with a giant red sun setting over a giant set of orange mountains.
The images were so beautiful it almost made even Tomoya want to cry, but there was one image that really caught there eye's. It was an image of the old man, hands interlocked with his now white haired wife. The image showed the old man outside the door of what appeared to be his home with the blue box outside. The whole scene depicted a man leaving home for the betterment of his family. The only question was why, what for.
The entire event felt like it lasted a lifetime, but it really only lasted 10 seconds. Tomoya and Nagissa, slightly dazed and shaken by the event, but solid again, ran over to the man to see if he was alright. As they approached they noticed that he was starting to glow, and he was close to passing out.
"Look old man" Tomoya said as he croached down to help him up. "We want to help, but you have to tell us who you are, where you came from, how you got here, and what's happening to you."
"Tomoya, he's dying. We can't just ask him that. We have to help him." Nagissa implied, clearly appalled by Tomoya's rudely timed question.
"No, no, he's right." The old man replied, leaving Nagissa and Tomoya astonished. "You both deserve to know, after everything you've endured in the past three minutes. My name is Axel, I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, however not from this universe. I got here using my Time And Relative Dimensions In Space device, otherwise known as the TARDIS, which I upgraded with a prototype Quantum Universal Jump Drive, and the reason that I'm dying and all this odd stuff is happening is because, during the crash I fell into the Quantum Universal Jump Drive, and now the quantum energy that now flows through my veins…is changing…my physiology…as we speak."The man said as fast as he could. "The good news is that I can still regenerate and heal myself. It's a sort of trick we Time Lords have to cheat death. The only problem is that I'll change. My personality, my face, my age, everything I am right now will change."
"Oookay, but why do you need to be inside that blue box to…heal yourself?" Tomoya asked, still trying to wrap his head around everything Axel just said.
"Normally it would be safe enough for me to regenerate right here and now, but as I said the quantum energy within me is changing my…physiology. I should still be able to regenerate, but because of the quantum energy's influence, it will be a highly unstable and destructive process, so in order to limit the destruction as much as possible, I need to get inside my ship before the process staaaaaaarrrrrrttttsss….Ahhhhhhhh" Axel screamed in agony, at the top of his lungs.
Nagissa, still shocked from everything that's happened, and now with the extra confusion from everything the man told them, bent over and, with Tomoya's help, got the old man back on his feet and walked him toward the open blue box, not even noticing how much bigger on the inside it looked than its exterior. As soon as they reached the open doors, Axel grabbed onto the nearest door and pulled himself in, but not before turning around to confront the 2 that helped him.
"Before I go, seeing as this will be the last time…my current self will be seen or heard from…again" He said, gasping between words. "I want to thank you both for staying to help me threw out this whole…extremely confusing and terrifying four minutes…and I also want to apologize for all the trouble I have caused you…and the trouble I will cause you…for you see, after I regenerate, I'm afraid I will require your help once more.
Nagissa, still unsure what he meant about his current self never being heard from or seen again, took hold of Tomoya's hand. "We'll help in any way we can. It's the least we could do for someone who is suffering as much as you."
"Thank you. You two are truly kind and selfless beings. After I come out, I will seem very energized, and very different, but I will pass out after a while, so I'm sorry to ask you two this, but I'll need you… to take me somewhere save for me to rest… while I recharge." His face and hands were glowing a very gright yellow as he was talking, and it actually started to flow out of him like a fountain of light. Axel looked down at his hands and sighed a painfull sigh. "It's time. Goodbye, and stand back."
Axel walked in slowly and closed the doors behind him. Nagissa and Tomoya, not sure what to expect, ran back behind the trees they hid behind not to long ago, and wited. At first nothing seemed about to happen, everything was still and silent. Then after a few seconds, the sound of the old man screaming in pure agony came from the blue box, as well as extremely bright light from it's dirty windows. The light was so bright Nagissa and Tomoya had to look away to protect their eyes. Then the scream stopped. Tomoya, thinking that something must have gone horribly wrong, started to get up and run to the box to help him. However, before he could even stand up, the windows of the box exploded outward, and a huge blast of fire came out on all sides through the new openings, coming within inches of engulfing the closest tree, and forcing Tomoya to reconsider his decision and go back to hiding next to Nagissa.
Tomoya and Nagissa, now huddled together in a position they would later on find very embarrassing (bothe sitting down, facing away from the blue box, behind a tree, Nagissa's head on Tomoya's shoulders, Tomoya and Nagissa holding each other very close) looked towards where the blue box was, seeing as it had been several seconds since anything happened. Only, the blue box was no longer there, or at least it was no longer blue. Standing in its place was a very bright red box of the exact same dimensions. The area around it was burnt from the flames, but the box itself looked completely brand new, even the windows were fixed.
Tomoya and Nagissa, after realizing the destruction was over, and after realizing the way they were huddled together, jumped up and away from each other, both their faces shining a bright red, both looking away from each other.
"Agch Ahmm." Tomoya cleared his throat, trying to change the subject. "Let's uhhh, let's check on the old man."
"Yeah, let's go check on him", Nagissa shakily and nervously replied.
As they walked toward the newly colored box, having completely forgotten the embarrassing event that happened not to long ago, the newly bright red doors opened outward as a young man of about maybe 20 with very tall, seiky, and extremely bright red hair, even brighter than the box he came out of. He seemed about 6 ½ feet tall, very thin with broad shoulders, very long arms, and was dressed in a big black rain coat that went all the way down to his ankles and fitted him very nicely, as well as the black gloves he was wearing.
"Woah, hello again" he yelled out, almost slipping on the newly burnt and muddy ground. "Sorry about the whole dramatic display earlier. You weren't hurt at all were you? Ah, never mind, you two look fine. Oh, by the way, how do I look?"
Before Tomoya and Nagissa could even replay, he brought out a small mirror and pointed it at himself, looking carefully at his reflection. "Oh, nice read hair. I like the style, but I kind of wish I was ginger. Nice handsome face." He then pursed his lips so he could view his teeth. "Hmmm. New teeth, that's not particularly normal. Hmmm?"
The odd man suddenly caught a glimpse of the box he came out of, and turned around immediately towards it with a shocked look on his face, not that different from how Tomoya and Nagissa was looking at him now.
"What did you do to my Tardis?" the man asked no one in particular, as he walked over to the box.
"Uh, excuse me, sir?" Tomoya asked trying to get the man's attention.
"Why is it red? It was perfectly fine when it was blue." The man was stroking the door of the box now.
"Sir!" Tomoya practically yelled.
"Oh, my wife is gonna kill me for this. But then again she might react the same way to this as my rgeneration."
"Excuse me, sir!" Nagissa yelled.
Turning around on his heels, immediately forgetting about the box's new color, the man faced both Nagissa and Tomoya. "Yes? Sorry, what is it?"
Tomoya, surprised that Nagissa of all people, with her shy nature, was able to get the man's attention when he couldn't, addressed the man. "Who are you, and where's Axel?"
The man looked surprised and hurt at the same time by the question, like as if a friend of his had had for a very long time asked who he was, as if he was talking to a stranger, or as if he was a puppy that was just kicked by a total stranger. "I'm Axel. Didn't I explain? I'm pretty sure I did."
He started walking between them now. "Wait; hold on, there's something else extremely important that I told you two. Something that's supposed to effect this very moment. Oh, I remember, I told you two I was going to…"
Right as he was about to finish his sentence he fell down flat on his face between Tomoya and Nagissa, shocking both of them.
Nagissa and Tomoya just stood there watching him, scared that he might be dead. Then after several seconds, Tomoya bent over to check his pulse and let out a grateful sigh as he was reassured by the healthy and yet inhumanly fast heart beat. "Well, he's still alive, that's for sure."
"Phew. So what should we do now?" Nagissa asked.
"Hmmm. Well he did say he was going to need us to take him somewhere safe to rest. But this is someone else intirely."
"Well he did say he was Axel. Maybe it's the same person. He did also say he would look completely different." Nagissa pointed out.
"The same guy or not we can't just leave him out here. Besides…" Tomoya started, as he began to pick up the red haired gentleman. "He has a lot of explaining to do, about everything that just happened."
"But where will we take him?" Nagissa asked, as she helped Tomoya carry the red head.
"Well, to your house of course. I'm sure your parents won't mind after we explain."
"You mean try to explain." As they walked off back to the path, holding the unconscious Axel, neither of them noticed the tiny mechanical bug that watched the entire scene, and was now following them.