ACROSSover--by horatia1984

NOTE on CONTINUITY: This story takes place (Doctor Who) between Destiny of the Daleks and City of Death, and (Excel Saga) between... well, I haven't really decided yet.

Doctor: #4

Romana: #2

Master: #2

Hyatt: #???

Part One: "Nice to Meet You--Rest In Peace??"

It started out as a typical day--but then, this sort of thing always does. It's actually quite remarkable, if you think about it, how exceptionally rare it is for a day to be freaky, weird, hideously abnormal or just plain whacked-out before a big honking hole is ripped in the fabric of space-time and an alien spacecraft materializes on the side of the road. There is no evidence to suggest that a big honking hole in the fabric of space-time and/or an alien spacecraft would be any less impactful on life as we know it if it were to open on an atypical day instead of a typical one, and the law of averages would rather tend to indicate that there should be at least a smattering of atypical days in there somewhere, but no. Somehow it's always happening on a typical day.

And that's exactly what it was in a certain city in a certain prefecture somewhere in Japan--a typical day. Until the typical-ness was shattered by a grinding, wheezing noise and a large object materialized on the sidewalk. For a nanosecond, not even long enough for the human eye to register, it resembled a large marble column, then immediately it metamorphosed into a vending machine. Soon afterward, had anyone really been paying attention, they would have witnessed the fairly atypical sight of the vending machine opening, apparently of its own volition, and a middle aged man stepping out of it, then closing the cover behind him.

This was not your typical Japanese businessman. For one thing, he wasn't Japanese. For another thing, a more interesting thing, he wasn't human. And for yet another thing, perhaps most interesting of all, to everyone hurrying about on the streets around him, he looked exactly like a typical Japanese businessman.

He was a Time Lord, and like most Time Lords he had an impressively long name, but being an evil renegade and not having much use for their society, he preferred to be called the Master. One thing he was a particularly accomplished Master of was disguise. The hypnotic powers characteristic of Time Lords made this possible in a general sense without the use of costumes. Instead of a completely black outfit with sleeves that poofed at the shoulders which positively screamed Classical Villain and a face that would have been described by someone who didn't know any better as European, any passersby (if later asked, which was hardly likely) would have reported seeing an ordinary Japanese face and a drab but not unusual suit and tie.

The Master had not been on the sidewalk more than five seconds before a pale, thin girl in pink scrubs bumped into him, murmured "Oh, dear, excuse me," and dropped dead. This event left the Master somewhat at a loss. It was quite common for humans (or any other indigenous life-forms) to drop dead soon after his arrival on any given planet, true, and Earth was certainly no exception, but it was rare indeed for it to happen when he was not directly responsible. Being beaten to an apparent murder of opportunity was a shock he was not entirely prepared for.

In an action that would have been interpreted by humans who didn't know any better as one of concern, he stooped to check her pulse, just to be certain that what he thought had just happened had in fact occurred. There was nothing to feel; the girl was quite dead.

The Master straightened and stood for a moment, wondering what to do. Instinct and common sense, of course, suggested to him that he should forget about the dead girl on the sidewalk and do what he came to this backwater planet to do: namely, take the scanner out of his pocket and search for his archnemesis's TARDIS before said archnemesis had a chance to make another in what was beginning to seem like an interminable series of space-time jumps. But an immediate death for which he was not directly responsible was so unusual that it instantly attained an almost irresistible hold on his curiosity. The operative word was "almost," naturally, and he might have been able to break free of it had it not been for a sudden clatter of footsteps and the appearance of a second young girl, this one more robust-looking and certainly louder.

Her hair was dyed a peculiar shade of yellowy orange and pulled back into a fat braid except for two small sections that hung like overlong sideburns on either side of her face. She, too, was dressed in scrubs--aqua ones--although the ID clipped to her chest that read "MAINTENANCE" suggested something less than medical and she smelled rather unpleasantly of cheap bathroom disinfectant and old mops.

"HACHAN!" shrieked the new arrival, apparently addressing this salutation (or expletive, the Master couldn't tell which from the context) to the dead girl on the sidewalk. "We don't have time for your whole passing-out routine right now! Lord Ilpal--I mean, the Boss is expecting us in twenty minutes, and if we're late, he's going to do what he always does and I do NOT feel like a swim today! Get your Chief Inspecting ass off the ground and let's go-GO-GO!!"

Naturally there was no response from the corpse.

The girl came to a stop directly in front of the body. "HACHAN!" she whined, more insistently.

The Master stared for a moment in disbelief at the revelation that anyone, even a human, could be that compeletely dense. He decided that if he was ever going to get this whole girl-dropping-dead business over with, he would have to pass the responsibility for disposing of the body to someone else. Of course, he could always shrink the body into a convenient doll-sized version in the peculiar manner that had become his trademark, but now that this oaf had blundered upon the scene, that would mean killing her as well and frankly he didn't feel like wasting the energy. He had an archnemesis to pursue, and while he was an extremely patient man, he would still rather not have to start the search all over again if he could avoid it.

So, a tranfer of responsibiity for the situation it was--and since this bimbo apparently knew the cadaver, she was unfortunately the best candidate for that particular role. This necessitated a statement of the painfully obvious.

"This--girl--is--dead," he said, loudly and quite a bit slower than normal, since the dead girl's companion was obviously extremely simple-minded.

The yellowy-orange-haired maintenance girl smiled and waved a hand dismissively in his direction. "Oh, it's okay, Mister," she said. "She does that." She looked down at the body. "Hachan!" she whined. "Seriously!"

The Master began to wonder if he was going to have to use serious hypnosis on the idiot to convince her. Watching her nudge the body impatiently with one foot, he was very nearly resigned to doing so.

Then the corpse sat up and said, "Oh, dear--I'm sorry, Senior. Was I dead for very long?"

End of Part One.