Hello, Sweeties! I appologize for the wait for this chapter. I had finals and my last week of school, and then right afterwards we left for a family trip to Mexico, where I had no internet with which to upload this chapter. (Not to mention the fact that I had horrible writer's block while writing it.)
So if there are any errors, please let me know so I can fix them.
The Winnie the Pooh ride wsssas nice enough, although it was strange that it stopped a few times throughout its course and in a scene towards the end of the ride where it "rains", it actually rained. Just a bit, but enough that the part of River's hair that had been gelled and hairspray-ed into a bun just frizzed out of control further. Needless to say she was not amused.
Next, Amy chose for them to ride "Snow White's Scary Adventures". They got the "Dopey" car, and both women proceeded to make their husbands ride in the front seat to show who the dopey ones were. Everything went smoothly until the second to last scene of the ride, when the Dwarfs chase the Old Hag to the top of the cliff. The Hag stands above the door to the next scene, where she appears to be pushing a boulder down the mountain to crush the Dwarfs as they pursue her. The boulder tipped towards the car holding the Ponds as they passed under it, but actually proceeded to fall, narrowly missing the car and its occupants by about six inches.
The Doctor turned around and stared at the boulder, which was now blocking the path of the rest of the cars. He was about to jump out of their car to scan it with his sonic when all three Ponds grabbed him and held him down.
"There are sensors all over the ride, and if you get out of the car, you will trip them. Tripping those sensors will cause the entire ride to shut down and get us thrown out of the park. I may not be having a great time, but I don't want us to have to leave. Stay put, Doctor," River admonished.
The Doctor continued to stare behind the car even as they passed through the last scene. "But then why didn't the ride stop...?" he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.
They then proceeded to ride the Carousel. Nothing out of the ordinary happened there except for the Doctor trying to sing along to all of the Disney music that was being played and Amy and River telling him to shut up.
After riding the Carousel, the two couples looked around at the rest of the rides around them in Fantasyland. Everyone but River agreed that they should go ride "It's a Small World" next.
As they wound through the queue, Amy noticed something move behind them. She turned to find nothing there. After a few more seconds, Rory turned to look behind them, but jumped and abruptly faced forward again when the large clock above them struck one thirty P.M. Amy also jumped at the sound of the clock strikes and looked at Rory.
"Did you see something too?" she asked.
"Yeah. I mean, I thought I did at first, but it was probably nothing..." he replied.
Amy shifted uncomfortably and was considering asking to not ride the ride, but they were already at the loading station and getting into their boat. It was with a bit of paranoia that Amy and Rory noticed that they had the entire boat to just the four of them, and the boat behind them wasn't loaded at all.
"Uh, Doctor?" Rory leaned forward to tell the Doctor what he and Amy had seen and felt, but at that moment the Doctor's head whipped around to follow something else he'd seen as their boat passed into the first scene of the ride.
"What was that...?" the Doctor mused out loud as he pulled out his sonic and started scanning around them.
Amy leaned forward. "Did you see it too, Doctor?"
The Doctor shook his head. "Not so much see it, as feel it... you know, just... an uncomfortable atmosphere..."
"Maybe it's just this annoying song..." River muttered. Just then, she saw something too. "Doctor... please tell me that's not what I think it is..."
The Doctor turned to see where River was pointing. Amid a group of animatronic children was something the most certainly should not have been there: a Weeping Angel. Or, more accurately, an animatronic of a Weeping Angel, done in the style of the others on the ride.
"Ooohh, that is not good... That is very much not good..." the Doctor said after reading the results on the sonic and seeing the animatronic. "River, keep looking at the Angel. Don't blink."
"You really needed to tell me that?" she quipped back as she stared at the animatronic. "I know what they can do..."
"Doctor...?" Amy whispered softly as she pointed at the other side of the scene. There was a tiny animatronic of a Silence.
The Doctor looked down at the readings on the sonic again. "Alright then, there is something very wrong here. So far there's been an Angel and Silence, but both were animatronics... animatronics much younger than the rest of the ones on this ride. Obviously, they have been added recently..." He looked at the sonic readings again. "Very recently. Like as in the past day..."
"There's another one..." Rory said, pointing through the archway into the next scene where there was a tiny Dalek animatron. It was moving its eyestalk as if it were searching for something.
"Doctor, what are all of these things? What are they doing here?" Amy asked while continuing to stare at the animatronic Silence.
"I'm not sure... but I have an idea..." He looked around for the nearest animatronic version of one of his foes. A tiny Cyberman was closest. The Doctor pointed the sonic towards the robot, and the image of the Cyberman sputtered and disappeared. In its place was one of the normal animatronics of a singing child.
He then turned to one of the Dalek animatronics. It noticed the Doctor's movement and began yelling its trademark "EXTERMINATE" and shooting beams of electricity towards the boat. However, where as a Dalek shot would normally leave a scorch mark on the surface it hit (as long as it wasn't a human), there was no trace of a hit on any surface. The Doctor pointed the sonic once more, and again, the image of the Dalek wavered, disappeared, and left only one of the animatronic children in its place.
Another animatronic Dalek had appeared on the other side of the boat. River had pulled out her blaster, and was preparing to shoot it when the Doctor grabbed her arm to stop her.
"It's just another animatronic. Something is using a perception filter to make us see some of them as Daleks, Cybermen, and Angels." he warned.
"And Silence," Amy reminded. She was still staring at it, afraid to look away and forget.
"Amy," the Doctor said. "You can look away from it. It's not real."
"But that still leaves one other problem..." River pointed out as she aimed he blaster at another animatronic of a Weeping Angel. "If an image of an Angel becomes, itself, an Angel, then what do animatronics count as, and what will they do?"
"That is a good question..." the Doctor responded as he looked around to see if there were any more Angels. "I'd say, to be safe, the usual: Don't blink, and don't look into its eyes. Does anyone know how close we are to the end of the ride?"
Rory looked in the guidebook and answered, "It says in here that there's twelve scenes, and I'm pretty sure that we're in the ninth or tenth... So close, but not quite close enough..."
"All right, need to think... think an hope there aren't any more Angels..." the Doctor muttered to himself. "Of course! If they're under a perception filter, then the filter needs to be in a central location somewhere in here, and we'll need to disable it..." He began looking around the ride, his eyes searching everywhere. River also looked around, knowing what to search for.
"Amy, Rory, keep looking at the Angels..." she warned.
The boat continued to drift, and they had arrived in the final scene before the Doctor or River had found anything that remotely resembled a perception filter.
"It's not possible for a perception filter to disguise itself, is it?" River asked as they floated through the final scene. So far, the animatronics in the scene were in their normal form.
"No, it's been tried many times to make a perception filter that can disguise itself as well as its surroundings, but it was never successfully completed..." the Doctor answered as he continued to look around. Just then, the Doctor kicked something on the floor of the boat. "Hello, what's this?" he asked as he leaned down to get a better look.
Just then, Amy and Rory both saw something move out of the corners of their eyes, and felt the same shiver that they'd felt in the ride queue. They noticed whatever it/they was/were, they somehow caused the animatronics to change suddenly into the aliens, and in the rafters above them, they heard some wild screeching and snarling.
"Doctor!" Amy yelled, causing the Doctor to hit his head rather hard on one of the seats in the boat as he tried to sit up from his crouched position on the floor. River looked up in time to see something disappearing into the rafters. The Doctor wasn't able to look in time, but he immediately scanned the area where the creature had been.
"We saw part of that thing while we were in the queue!" Rory shouted.
"Well why didn't anyone tell me about this BEFORE we got on the ride?" the Doctor shouted back as he looked at the readings on the sonic. Upon seeing what it said he muttered to himself, "Ohhh, not good. Very, very not good... what are you?"
"Doctor, what was that thing?" Amy asked, still staring at the spot in the ceiling where the creature had disappeared.
Rory, on the other hand, was looking at the animatronics surrounding them in the scene. "Guys... look..."
The other three tore their gazes from the ceiling to the scene around them. All of the animatronics were back to normal with no trace of any change having taken place.
River turned to the Doctor. "You can't go anywhere without trouble following you, can you? Because that thing... that wasn't from Earth. I know it wasn't... And honestly, of all places to find an alien? It would... oh."
"Exactly."
"Um, can someone fill us in on the conclusion you two just came to?" Amy broke in.
The Doctor ignored her for a moment and fiddled with some settings on the sonic.
River shook her head at him and turned to Amy and Rory. "It would never be noticed. In a place like this park, where there are so many things that are out of the ordinary and fantastical... I mean, there are animatronics of everything from children," she gestured to the scene around them, which they were finally exiting, "...to animals, to "imaginary" creatures, to, well, aliens. Something could probably hide here for years."
"And whatever it is, it knows we're here, and it does not like that, one bit," the Doctor said as he put his sonic away.
The boat pulled through the last arch and back to the loading dock. There was no line and no other boats to be seen in front of them. The lights were off, except for a few emergency floodlights. Their boat stopped and they were able to get out. A castmember rushed over to them and said, "Oh, my goodness, I am so sorry. We sent someone to come get you out, but we couldn't find you! It's a wonder the boat got back here on its own..."
"Wait, why were you sending someone to come get us?" Rory asked.
"Well, look around! We lost power on the entire ride. We're running on emergency backup generators right now. We sent someone back to find all of you and walk you out of the ride, but all he found were empty boats. We weren't sure what to think, or do for that matter. I mean, it was like you four had vanished! I'm sorry you must have been stuck in a dark, broken down ride. Here..." She handed them four fastpasses. "These are good for any ride in the Magic Kingdom for any time, any day. We're so sorry for the inconvenience."
The Doctor and the three Ponds exited the ride. The four looked at each other.
Rory spoke first. "So... whatever that thing was, it not only created a perception filter, but a really really strong one."
"Yes, incredibly strong. Strong enough to make it seem like the entire ride was still running... But then how was the boat still moving?" the Doctor wondered as he began to pace.
"And what was that thing?" Amy asked.
"We should look for something that could have been on a ride. That seems the most logical explanation for it being able to hide here for so long because it obviously knows what it's doing. "
"So... we're looking for an alien... in Disney World?"
The Doctor looked up and grinned like a five year old. "We're looking for an alien in Disney World."
"Oh, fantastic! I was beginning to get a bit bored. Just one thing, Sweetie..." River remarked to the Doctor.
"Yes?"
"Amy and I are definitely changing out of the princess dresses first."
Just one quick note: Snow White's Scary Adventures closed on May 31st of this year. However, I always loved the ride, and I wanted to include it. (Not to mention the fact that the TARDIS is a time machine and the Doctor can visit Disney at any time.)
As always, reviews are appreciated and encouraged.