Chapter 6
"Well, this could be a problem," said the Doctor.
"Doctor! The TARDIS!" cried Harry.
"It's gone," cried Sarah Jane.
The Doctor stepped forward. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a silver rod with a vast array of buttons and a red loop on one end. He started waving it over the ground, muttering unintelligibly to himself. A high-pitched clicking sound emanated from the device.
"Are we sure this is where we left it?" blurted Harry.
"Quite positive," Sarah Jane replied, anxiety apparent in every syllable. "L-look, you can even see the impression left where it was standing!"
"But what happened to it?"
"I-I don't know," replied Sarah Jane. "It may have taken off without us, I suppose."
The Doctor looked up at her.
"A good guess, Sarah. Completely wrong of course, but a good guess nonetheless."
"Oh, really?" Sarah Jane said, recovering some of her usual feistiness. "And I suppose you know what happened, then."
"Naturally. Or at the very least, I can make a very accurate approximation." He rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. "It looks like someone has taken it."
"Taken it?" Harry gasped. "You mean somebody nicked it?"
"Only thing that makes sense, considering the evidence," replied the Doctor. He point to where the TARDIS had formerly stood. "There isn't any trace of a de-materialization, accidental or otherwise, or the Sonic Screwdriver would have told me." He held up the silver tube for emphasis. "And," he added. "I observed a disturbance in the grass. Apparently, they tipped over before taking it." He winced painfully as he said this last bit.
"I don't understand it!" Sarah Jane cried. "Why would anybody want to take the TARDIS?"
"Well, it is a time machine," Harry pointed out.
"I know, but that's hardly common knowledge, is it?"
"But we did announce that fact rather loudly after landing, Sarah," the Doctor said thoughtfully. He waved his hand to the trees around them. "Anybody could have heard us. There certainly are places to hide."
"Well, now that you mention it, I did think I heard someone, but then it thought it was one of those Poker-mon things," Harry said.
"Pokémon, Harry. Pokémon. But I do agree with you—I believe I heard somebody as well."
""Our thief, then," Sarah Jane surmised. "Or thieves, really. The TARDIS isn't really light I suppose, having a different dimension inside of it."
"But where did they go?" asked Harry.
"You know Harry, that's what I like about you—straight to the point." The Doctor flashed Harry a quick grin before bending down to examine the ground once again.
"There are more disturbances in the grass, from where they walked away," he said. "Let's see where they take us, then."
He stood up and began walking toward a denser part of the woods, his body hunched over and his face close to the ground. Harry and Sarah Jane followed at a distance. The trees around them grew thicker, and the light grew increasingly dimmer. They did not see or hear any Pokémon.
The thieves apparently were not graceful movers. Occasionally, they would see scratches in the trees where it scraped against them. The Doctor grimaced when he saw a particularly painful-looking gash in the side of one tree.
"Old girl is going to need another paint job at this rate," he said sadly. He then resumed his tracking, and said no more.
At last they reached a clearing. The Doctor continued unabated until he reached the middle of the clearing. He stopped dead and stood motionless for a moment. Then he stood up and stepped back.
"Is something wrong?" asked Sarah Jane.
"The traces end here," replied the Doctor.
"End here? What do you mean, end here?" demanded Harry. "Come on, old chap, they couldn't have just vanished!"
"They didn't, Harry," the Doctor replied impatiently. "They took off."
"What, in the TARDIS?"
"No. A balloon."
There was a pause.
Sarah Jane recovered first.
"A-a balloon."
"Yes," answered the Doctor.
"A h-hot air balloon."
"That would be about right."
"So let me get this straight—a gang of thieves happened to be standing around these woods and happened to hear us say we have a time machine. So, they stole the TARDIS and took it back to a hot air balloon they happened to have standing by."
"That would be about the size of it, yes."
Sarah Jane sighed. A couple of years ago (in her personal timeline) she would have balked at the ideas of something so patently absurd ever occurring. But Sarah Jane had gained a lot of mileage since then. She traveled through time and space, with an eccentric aristocrat from an alien civilization and a Navy doctor who worked with an organization that repelled alien invasions on a regular basis, in a space/time ship which was disguised as a public call box. She had encountered grotesque alien life, saved strange alien worlds from destruction, hob-nobbed with medieval royalty, and was currently standing on a parallel Earth in which the local wildlife had superpowers.
This was nothing.
That disturbed her.
"Well, what now?"
"Now? Now, I suppose we'll have to go back to town," said the Doctor.
Harry frowned.
"Are you sure that's such a good idea, old chap? You did stir up a bit of a row the last time you were there."
"I only said what needed to be said," said the Doctor sullenly. "Besides, it is getting late and we need lodging until I can locate the TARDIS. Perhaps somebody in town can help us—that Nurse Joy, perhaps. And maybe somebody there can help us find the TARDIS—or at least get us on the right track to finding it."
There was sense in this, so Sarah Jane and Harry nodded their assent and began the descent to the town.
Then they heard a scream.
The trio looked at each other in astonishment.
Then they did what most people do when they hear a scream—they ran.
But there was a key difference—they ran toward the scream, not away.
Well, I think that will conclude this chapter for tonight. It's Christmas Eve as I write this, though I fully expect it to be Christmas Day by the time anybody reads it. I apologize for the brevity of this chapter—chapter 7 will be much longer, I'm sure. I have the chapter planned already. I meant to the things in Chapter 7 be a part of chapter 6, but I wanted to post something for Christmas and decided to post the first section as a single chapter. Get ready for Chapter 7—I'll try to have it up by at most next week. In it, our favorite time travelers will learn the identity of the screamer, we shall meet up again with the vile poacher J, our Jedi will finally meet some of the other characters in this story (I'll leave it open as to who), and Ash and friends will have to come to terms with what the Doctor has told them. Will his unique insight to their life style bring a change (Spoilers: No. Seriously though, I'm surprised the anime has never brought this up—and 4Kids atrocious dubbing on the first film doesn't count. Mewtwo's voice actor was awesome though, but I digress). Or will the Doctor learn what Pokémon battling is about and accept it? Find out what happens next in the World of Pokémon!
Anyway, I was quite proud of the prose in this chapter. I thought the dialogue was quite good—it is very difficult to get that right. I have read published novels where the characters talk in a stilted sort of way devoid of any colour or personality. I do hope I was true to the characters here.
Oh, and do please leave a review, won't you? Some constructive criticism would not be unwelcome (emphasis on constructive, flamers).
Merry Christmas!
Your affable wraith,
Shade Nightingale.