EPISODE THREE |SEALED WITH A STAB
The grunts of the ship's engine coming to a stop startled the girls – mostly because they didn't realize the ship had been moving to begin with. ("It doesn't work like that," Hunter had explained. "It's more like a disappear-here-reappears-there kind of deal"). "This ship is meant to be piloted by six different people, but because there's only one of me I have to hit the emergency brakes instead" the Time Lord explained with a shrug as he walked towards the door. "Now, before you leave this ship, you have to promise not to change anything big." He turned to look at them. "I mean it. This is the past, big changes could fuck everything up real bad."
The girls nodded. "Sure" Jane shrugged. "Butterfly effect and all"
Hunter made a noise. "Awful movie, right?" he chuckled, and the girls stared at him blankly once again. "Right, sorry, wrong year. What was hip in 1999?" he asked himself, turning to open the door.
"There is a fairly good chance I'm in a mental hospital right now," Daria said, glancing at her friend. "And that this is the weirdest mental breakdown ever."
When they stepped outside of the TARDIS, their biggest surprise wasn't that they were actually standing somewhere other than Lawndale. No, the girls instead stared in shock at each other as something weird happened to them. Stepping out of the ship, it was as if a whole new dimension was born. Daria turned to look at Jane, only to find that the brunette's face had literally changed in shape. "Aah!" she screamed in shock at how Jane's features seemed to be coming towards her, only to be greeted by an identical "Aah!" coming from Jane herself, surprised that Daria's face now had depth. They saw the same happen to Hunter earlier, inside the ship – the whole ship had a different appearance than what they were used to, but then again the ship was bigger on the inside. The girls had just assumed this weird, lumpy, pop-up appearance was what aliens looked like on their natural habitat. But now, for some ungodly reason, they looked just the same. "What the hell is going on with your face?" they both asked at the same time.
Hunter turned to look at them, caught by surprise by the screams. Once he saw them, he understood. "It's okay, it's okay, calm down-" he started, raising his hands. "It's the TARDIS, it features a psychic circuit that is still connected to your heads. It's the same thing that made you see me like – well, flat and 2d" he stopped for a moment, both girls glaring at him. "Which is a great look, for some people! It's quite neat, actually. The Polyglot feature translates everything and the Chameleon Circuit adapts our appearance so we don't stand out like- well, like aliens. It's basically a perception filter, it doesn't really mutate your body or anything- it just convinces everyone you look different."
The girls stared at him. "But I asked to see Rome. Not a different planet. Why do we look like-" she glanced down at herself, and then at her best friend. "-Well, aliens?"
Hunter had to think for a moment. "I'm not sure. Something is definitely weird about this universe" he scratched his chin. "At first I thought everyone looked like that- like you, but now…"
"Let's just find Hercules and get the hell out of here, okay?" Jane crossed her arms. "This whole thing is giving me the creeps. Where could he be?"
"On Greece." Daria spoke up, a smirk on her voice (but not her lips).
"You mean, not at Rome? Damn you, basic geography!" the brunette shook her fist at the air. "What do you think he's doing?"
"He's probably busy. Being a fictional character." Daria pointed, sarcastically.
"Damn you basic logic!" Jane shook her fist at the sky once again.
"Actually," Hunter turned to them. "There's a good chance that he's real."
"You're kidding, right?" Daria was the one to ask, this time without sarcasm.
"I mean, he is a hottie, but-" Jane followed up. "The implications of him actually being real would be terrifying. He can't exist."
Hunter stood silent for a moment. "This whole universe can't exist." He said, then, flatly. "The hole in that wall, that shouldn't lead to a different universe. It's not a wormhole or a manifestation of the Time Vortex – it's a crack in reality. It should lead into nothingness."
"Instead it leads to Holiday Island" Daria followed, turning to look at Jane. She wasn't a fan of sci-fi but this was starting to get interesting.
"Or Lawndale." He said, then. "It's how I got to this universe to begin with. And now I find that it has more or less dimensions depending on when I land?"
"But why were you-?" Jane started, but she didn't have the chance to finish that thought. "Get down!" she yelled, instead, and just in time. As the three of them threw themselves in the ground, a gold-and-silver blur flew in over their heads, hit the TARDIS – which went from looking like a block of marble to looking like Michelangelo's David upon the impact because why not – and then back where it came from. At the same time, a high-pitched scream could be heard echoing through the skies. It lasted just a few seconds, and then the noise grew closer. "What the hell-?"
From the distance, what looked like a lumpy, 3d Lucy Lawless came their way. "Is that…?" Daria started asking, but she, too, didn't have a chance to finish that though. The 3D-Lucy-Lawless wasn't alone. In fact, there was a whole freaking army following her. No, not following, chasing. Lucy Lawless fighting and army. In leather. "I think we accidentally traveled into Upchuck's dream journal by accident"
"No such luck, amiga" Jane pointed at the blonde girl fighting off two centurions with a stick. "If this were Upchuck's doing they'd be making out."
A silence hung above the three for a few moments – well, as close to a silence as you can get when two women are fighting an army over there – until Hunter got up, followed by the two unsure girls, and made his way to the fight. Hunter reached into his pocket for a couple of weapons, CLDs he called them ("It stands for Compact Laser Deluxe" he'd tell the girls later), which he used to kill four centurions in a matter of seconds. Most of the eyes turned to look at the man in funny clothes with a freaking ray gun, Daria and Jane just as surprised as everyone else ("What do you mean you had guns the whole time and didn't just shoot that demon guy the first time he almost killed you?" Daria would ask him later, in a rage. "I had to sing in public to save your time-travelling ass!" "Like a cheerleader!" Jane would then add, and Daria would just glare at her. "Not helping"). The army of romans was now coming their way, which Daria could say was very very bad.
The fight went on, Jane proving to be surprisingly good with stones ("it's all in the panic," she'd brag. "You'd be surprised with how good you can be at any physical activity once your life depends on it"), and Daria's cutting sarcasm not doing so great ("A sword fight. In ancient Rome. How original" she'd tried, the centurion simply ignored her, and the blonde girl could be heard yelling from five corpses away "what do you mean ancient?"), so instead she tried using one of the dead guys' swords.
Hunter was blasting his guns at the enemy centurions, having way too much fun at doing so, and 3D-Lucy-Lawless had her chakram decapitating five at a time when screams disrupted their concentration. The enemy was retreating, good. The enemy had captured Daria and the blonde girl, not good.
"Who the fuck are you?" 3D-Lucy-Lawless asked, dashing towards the Time-Lord with her sword at hand.
"Who the fuck are you?" he tried, a CLD pointed at the woman in leather clothes.
"I asked you first" 3D-Lucy-Lawless smirked
"I asked you second" Hunter raised an eyebrow
"Oh, for crying out loud!" Jane rolled her eyes, dropping the stones she still had on her hands. "Really?" she stepped between Hunter and the woman, eyes narrowing at him. "You know Hercules but you've never heard of Xena?" she then turned to look at the woman. "You're Xena, right? You look like Xena. I mean, a lumpy, 3D version of Xena, but whatever-" she turned back to Hunter. "The blonde chick is Gabrielle. She's Xena's girlfriend, and-"
"Woah" Xena raised her hands way too quickly, a slight blush spreading through her face. "Girlfriend?" he let out a forced laugh. "No way- She's my friend. Just my friend"
Jane looked at her from over her shoulder. "Right. Sorry. Wrong year" she turned back to Hunter. "Ok, so still-not-out Xena over here is a heroine, man. She saves people and shit. Seriously it's on syndication, how do you not know about Xena?"
Xena, on her end, had so many questions. 'Who are you people?', 'Where did you come from?', 'what the fuck is syndication?'. Instead, the warrior decided to focus on the problem at hand. "They have Gabrielle" she said, her voice all business. "And the girl with the weird green clothes-"
"Daria" Jane turned to her again, her voice also a lot more serious. Too serious for a kid her age, Xena would argue. "My best friend. We weren't even supposed to be here, I just made a joke about slapping Hercules to this guy-" she waved a hand at Hunter's general direction "because of course I didn't believe his freaking Time Machine was going to work-" Xena listened to everything silently, nodding when she thought she should, despite the fact that nothing made any sense. "-But anyways, where did they take our friends?"
When Daria came to, she found herself in a dark dungeon. There was a noise, people moaning and begging for mercy in the distance. Her glasses were cracked. Great. "Are you okay?" asked a stranger, and when she turned to look at said stranger, she found it was the blond girl from earlier. "I'm Gabrielle," the girl said, offering her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, my friend Xena will get us out of here".
Daria didn't have it in herself to be sarcastic. Not now, anyways. "I'm going to die in ancient Rome." She said, instead. "I haven't even been born yet, and I'm going to die."
Gabrielle just placed a hand on the girl's shoulder, trying her best to be reassuring.
The door opened just then, and a man who looked not quite like a centurion walked in – he had a square jaw, brown eyes and hair with just a hint of stubble on his face, and if his clothes were a clue, he seemed more like a Praetorian Guard. ("Damn DeMartino and his damn history classes"). "The Emperor will see you now".
"So the statue is a Time Machine?" Xena asked, arms crossed and a skeptical look that would make Daria feel proud. "And also a spaceship?"
"And bigger on the inside!" Jane added, with fake enthusiasm. "We can show you, can't we, Hunter?"
Hunter, on his end, found himself angrily tugging at the statue's parts, as that seemed to be the closest thing to a handle he could find.
The guard took Gabrielle away, and Daria found herself alone in their cell. No, not alone. "They're coming, you know?" asked a woman with a heavy British accent. Daria turned to look at her, she had blonde unwashed hair and her clothes seemed to be rags. "Your friends. They're coming to find you."
The girl just nodded, but the mysterious prisoner kept going. "But they're not coming here. You need to find them out there" she got up, took a step towards the door. "You need to find them while there's still time."
"You mean I need to bust out?" Daria asked, raising an eyebrow. "Aren't the guards going to kill me if I try to escape?"
"They'll kill you either way" was the response.
Daria thought about that for a moment.
"It- It-" Xena tried to think of something to say, but couldn't really come up with anything. "Fuck". Hunter just smirked.
"We need to be quiet, so I'm going to need you guys to help me" he said, walking towards the control panel. "Jane, you press this button when I tell you to" he gave a few steps to the side. "Xena, I'm going to need you to pull this lever, okay?" The woman just nodded and he went to his own position – his usual position on the control panel. "We're going to stop this baby how it's supposed to be done"
Daria agreed with the mysterious woman. They both tried to open the door, and then the British blonde lady actually did it. "Off you go," she said, pushing Daria out of the cell.
"How about you?" Daria turned to look at the stranger. "Aren't you going to escape with me?"
"Don't worry about me," she said.
Daria stared at her for a second. "What's your name?" she asked.
"They call me Lupo Cattivo." The stranger smiled. Daria nodded, and started running down the hall.
The TARDIS landed – quietly for once – in a room far south. The trio made its way down the large halls of the castle, searching for a way to reach the dungeons, when they came across the Throne. In it, sat a man who Jane thought looked like a young Malcolm McDowell ("I've seen A Clockwork Orange a thousand times"). "Oh shit" Hunter whispered, recognizing that Evan-Peters-look-a-like almost instantly. "That's Caligula."
Caligula had Gabrielle when the strangers arrived. She seemed bruised and beaten, and Jane knew of his reputation – she couldn't think of what tortures the man had in store for Gabrielle, and she found herself asking if Daria was still alive. "She is," Gabrielle told her, through a mouthful of blood as she helped her up.
"Hunter, now's the time to use that ray gun of yours" Jane called.
His voice was torn when he answered. "I can't kill Caligula!"
"I can" Xena pat, furious as she ran towards the emperor of Rome. That was why she was there to begin with, even before he dared touch Gabrielle.
The Guards in the room made a move, but with a gesture of his hands Caligula had them stop. The Emperor wanted to take Xena himself.
"Jane!" the voice called, and the brunette looked over her shoulder to see her best friend entering the throne room.
"How sweet," the Emperor said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You can all die together!" He signed for the guards to make their move, and they did. The room was now a bloody battlefield as Hunter blasted through one of the guards with his CLD, while Jane did the same with the weapon he'd handed her inside the TARDIS ("Cybermen technology, very dangerous" he'd said), Daria once again fighting with a dead man's sword, and Gabrielle using all of her strength to avoid the attacks from one of the guards. In the middle of this mess, Daria was the only one to see the guard from before entering the room – she was going to say something, but he brought his finger to his lip on the universal sign for silence, and she could see there was something in his eyes. He moved stealthily and in a matter of seconds had his sword out. Daria thought he was going to attack Xena.
"Watch out!" she screamed, but instead, the guard's sword went on the Emperor's back. It all dawned on her, 'damn DeMartino's damn history classes' came back to her as a flashback once again. The other guards had stopped attacking, and as the Emperor bled to death on the floor, the guard helped Xena to her feet. "You're Cassius" she said, and the man just smiled.
"Sorry about earlier," he said, putting away his bloody sword. "I had to wait for the right time."
"So you know Hercules, right?" Jane asked, a gleam in his eyes. "What's he like? Does he look like a young Kevin Sorbo or an older Disney cartoon?"
Xena stared at the girl for a few moments. She had no idea who those men were. "Why did you want to slap him?"
Jane shrugged. "He's handsome, and strong, and possibly not real. What girl could resist?" Xena rolled her eyes.
Hunter had repaired Daria's glasses. "Now what?" she'd asked Cassius.
"Caligula's family is still out there," the guard answered, and Daria shivered at the thought.
Gabrielle was good as new, thanks to the nanogenes Hunter had found on the TARDIS. She thanked him, and he just told her to be more careful in the future.
Daria and Gabrielle bid their goodbyes, Hunter and Cassius too. "Watch out for Claudius," the Time Lord warned the man.
Jane moved to talk to Gabrielle, Hunter and Xena having a conversation in front of the statue-spaceship-time-machine.
"You can't do this to them," the warrior told him, glancing at the girls. "They're just kids. It's too dangerous."
Hunter nodded. "I know."
"Then why do you do it?" she asked.
The Time Lord stood silent for a moment. "I have no one else."
"You know," Jane smiled at the blonde girl in front of her, leaning in close. "She likes you. Like, she like likes you."
Gabrielle blushed, much like Xena had earlier. "What? Don't be ridiculous, why would she-"
Jane just smiled. "Make sure to tell her you feel the same way. Something tells me you two are meant to be together"
Gabrielle nodded, and Jane hugged her – full on hugged her. Daria was somewhat surprised, but then again, it isn't every day you meet some of your favorite characters. She could see why Jane would hug. The trio moved back to the TARDIS, and the new friends they'd made watched it disappear. Gabrielle and Cassius stared in shock as Xena just let out a small laugh. She'd have fun explaining that to them.