Short 48 - Mall Mayhem

This story begins on a different note, as I sought to clean up one lingering detail from the last.

The crater loomed below us and I found it utterly fascinating as I held the sonic out over the TARDIS door. "Look at that," I murmured. "Not one sign of radiation. No excess thermal signature. Just an energy pattern like nothing I've seen before."

"I've never seen an explosion like this before," Liara agreed, checking the display showing on her omnitool. "What could have caused this?"

"I'm not sure." I sighed. "But I have a strong suspicion that it involves the illustrious Mister Varrick."

"So you think this was from him? How could he have caused something like this?" Liara's eyes widened. "You don't suppose he stole anything from the TARDIS, do you?"

"Everything was accounted for," I assured her. "But perhaps he learned something while in here." I sighed and turned away. "And the damn thing is, I can't tell one way or another if they survived."

"Well, why not go into the past?", Katara asked. "Just take us back to before they came through."

"Hrm. I suppose we're far enough from ourselves it should work," I murmured. "Can be tricky, materializing so close to an earlier part of our own timestream. Not impossible, just on the tricky side." I walked up to the TARDIS controls. "All right. Let's give this a try."

After doing my usual thing - heh - I was greeted by the TARDIS engine VWORPING happily along. Indeed, the ride was nice and smooth.

This made me incredibly suspicious.

Suspicions which were confirmed when I opened the TARDIS door and stepped out into what was clearly a normal American shopping mall, late 20th or early 21st Century. "Why do you always forget that two?", Liara sighed.

"I didn't this time."

"So this is another of those random occurrences where the TARDIS takes us where it wants to go?"

"Not where she wants," I corrected. "Where we need to go." I pulled out the sonic screwdriver. "So, let's see what's going on, hrm?"

Some active scanning told me what I had figured quickly. There was temporal energy here, of the sort that could only be produced by a Crack. Which meant that either the Crack itself, or something that had come through it, was in this normal-seeming mall.

Hrm.

I scanned about while we walked to the front of a clothing store. As I went to glance at the sign above it, I heard a young woman call out "Doctor?" with some confusion.

I moved my eyes downward and faced the girl standing in the store. She was dressed in the sort of fashions a teen of this cultural milieu would hew to, with red hair flowing past her shoulders and green eyes. The name tag on her shirt read "Kim". I blinked from a moment of surprise. "Miss Possible? You work here?"

"Well, I do now." Kim Possible stepped outside of the store. Her eyes took in the sonic screwdriver in my hand and a concerned expression came to her face. "What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing much, just tracking a crack in the fabric of space-time that's six dimensions deep," I answered.

"Hey Kim, what's going on out there?" A figure emerged from the store, also wearing the stereotypical teen fashions you'd expect. African complexion, dark eyes, wavy hair, and a name tag identifying her as "Monique". "Who is this guy?"

"Monique, this is the Doctor," Kim answered. "He's a sort of… time-traveling alien or something."

"I'm a Time Lord from Gallifrey," I replied. I motioned to my Companions. "And these are my traveling partners, Doctor Liara t'Soni and Katara."

Monique made that kind of face that told you she was in over her head, at least in her thoughts. "Uh... right."

"So, what was that you said about a crack in dimensions?", Kim asked.

"A Crack in the Multiverse. And they can act as gateways for various things. Some from my home cosmos. I close them when I find them."

"Is there anything I can do to help?", Kim asked.

"Kim, the manager's going to be here soon, we've got to get this place spotless," Monique protested.

Ah. The perils of the job. But even world-saving cheerleaders need income. "I should be fine," I said. I held up the sonic. "We'll get this thing found and out of your hair in…" I stopped as my sonic's scanning determined something.

"What is it?", Liara asked.

I walked around the two teenagers and into the store. It looked rather well kept, all things considered, but given the attitudes I had seen in Human business management I couldn't fault Monique's concern for the store's appearance regardless.

But my focus wasn't on the garb exactly, but upon a figure toward the entrance of the store, clad in a sleeveless sun dress. I held up the sonic toward it and confirmed my findings. "Where did you get this mannequin?", I asked, my tone laced with suspicion.

Kim loomed to Monique, who shrugged. "I dunno. We got a shipment in this morning some time, they were all in when I got to work."

I held up the sonic toward it.

There was a scream from behind us, coming from another shop in the mall.

I noticed the movement in time to jump on Kim and her friend, knocking them out of the way. Half of the mannequin's hand suddenly flipped open and revealed a barrel, which fired into the space the two teenagers had just occupied.

The other mannequins in the room began to move as well. The door to the storeroom flew open and even more of them came out.

"What's going on?!", Monique shouted as I rolled off of them.

"Autons!", I shouted. "Living plastic robots tied to the Nestene Consciousness." I pulled the sonic disruptor off the sling on my belt and used a radio-disruption wave. The mannequin that had tried to shoot us suddenly collapsed. "They're being remote-controlled."

Two others were bringing their gun-hands to bear. Liara pulled up a biotic bubble around us to absorb the shots. The mannequins coming from the rear of the store knocked over an entire display of clothes to come toward us. "Hey, I just set that one up!", Monique protested.

"Come along, young ladies!", I called out. We ran out of the store - and now I actually noticed the signs saying "Club Banana", seriously, you Humans and your naming of commercial enterprises never ceases to amuse me - and into the mall proper. A flood of people were rushing out of other shops and even more Autons were coming out of them.

"Who's remote-controlling them?", Kim asked me.

"Under normal conditions, the Nestene Consciousness," I answered. "But that shouldn't have stunned the one I cut off like that. Something else is controlling these beings." I led everyone toward the central courtyard of the mall. A beautiful water fountain was still gushing water about, a glass elevator was visibly on the second floor, and there were kiosks about. From all directions more Autons were coming toward us. I held up the sonic screwdriver and scanned actively. "Looks like the source of the radio signal is getting closer. Closer..."

The skylight above was smashed open and a flying vehicle I had seen before flew in. "Hahaha!", a blue-skinned man shouted from the passenger seat. "Behold, Kim Possible, my new army of living plastic!"

I rolled my eyes. "Oi, Drakel..."

"Drakken!," he shrieked. "It's Doctor Drakken."

"Whatever." I held up the sonic. "Rather clever of you with the control signal at all. How did you figure it out?"

"I'm a criminal genius, how do you think?"

I folded my arms. "You found a tear in space-time and these things came through. And some fellow on the other end with a distorted voice told you the control frequency."

Drakken snarled at that. "I..."

"He's got you there, Doctor D," his driver said, smirking.

"Shego, that's not helping!", he shouted. He babbled incoherently for a minute before switching back to English. "It doesn't matter. I have an army of indestructible mannequins that I can use to destroy Kim Possible once and for..."

"That's enough of that," I interrupted, holding the sonic screwdriver up. I activated it.

Electricity arced from the controls. "What just happened?!", I heard Shego shout before their vehicle suddenly fell out from under them. They screamed as they fell with it. Drakken's vehicle slammed into the ground with a satisfying crash, smashing some of the Autons in the process.

"Nice one, Doctor," Kim said to me.

"He does love to talk, doesn't he?", I noted.

Monique pointed forward. "Uh... why are the mannequins still coming?"

I looked back to them and ran a scan. "Oh, that fool," I muttered. "Drakken was played for a patsy. The moment his control signal cut, they reverted to original programming."

"Which is?"

"Come together, re-assemble the Nestene Consciousness from their programming, and take over Earth," I answered.

Kim rolled her eyes. "Here I am, just trying to finish senior year, and here's another 'take over the world' plot."

"Certainly tiresome, I'd love to face someone who just wanted a better golf course."

"Trust me, Doctor, that's not the improvement you think it is."

The Autons all started to reveal their gun hands. Liara stopped one wing of them with a singularity that sent Autons flying, causing shots to fly about wildly. I used a kinetic burst to accomplish something similar and Kim made a somersault jump into their midst. After her first attempts at punching failed given the lack of things like pressure points, Kim adapted and started using her agility to throw their aim off, causing several Autons to hit each other.

"Doctor..."

"Please keep an eye on those bozos in the car, Katara," I answered. "I'm going to try something. Liara, a shield?"

Liara stepped up between us and created a biotic field to absorb the Autons' fire. I held up the sonic disruptor and started cycling settings. A brute force attack would take too long, there were too many of them. But thankfully there was more than one way to deal with this. All I needed was to check the readings of Drakken's control signal. While I did, Kim was doing fairly well in keeping the Autons busy, jumping around the kiosks. She jumped behind one laden with perfume as shots came that way, hitting and shattering bottles. As she jumped out her face was twisted into a grimace. "Ugh. Monique, you were right about that new Estelle line."

"Thank you, Kim, but I'm a little more worried about the killer mannequins," her friend answered. She looked around as more continued to surround us.

"Ah, there we go!" I held out the sonic disruptor and spied the nearest kiosk. Unfortunately, there were too many Autons to get to it.

Thankfully, I didn't need to get to it myself.

I pulled back my right arm. "Kim, the kiosk with those plushie... Cuddlebunnies? Use this on the phone!" My right arm shot forward and my sonic screwdriver sailed through the air toward the kiosk.

The distance seemed, if I may be pardoned the pun, impossible to cover. But with a couple of jumps and kicks off the columns around the mall courtyard, Kim was suddenly grabbing the sonic screwdriver out of mid-air and landing beside the kiosk in question. She went to the phone and without further instruction held down the main function key.

The sonic screwdriver immediately connected to the mall PA system through the phone and sent out a specified UHF radio pulse. The Autons stiffened into immobility. The pulse drove them into an overload that left them melting and sparking.

"Well, that settles that," I sighed as the Autons spread out into a multitude of pools of melted plastic.

"There is no way I am cleaning this up," Monique said.

"Hey, it's not in Club Banana at least," Kim pointed out to her. She walked back to us and tossed the sonic screwdriver back to me. "But first we need to get Drakken and..."

Liara cried out. I turned to see Shego had grabbed her and was in the middle of throwing her toward Kim. Kim barely got out of the way in time. I brought out the sonic disruptor to attack her with but had to turn when I noticed the movement in the corner of my eye. I barely turned in time to intercept a blast from a weapon in Drakken's hand with Setting 42. "Drat!", he cursed, just before the sonic disruptor's kinetic setting sent him flying backward and back to the ground.

I turned as movement came to my eye and barely evaded a clawed swipe at my head by Shego. Green energy trailed from her hands as she battered at my disruptor's deflector shield. Katara came at her from the side with water trailing behind her, straight from the fountain. Shego barely paid attention to her, simply striking out with a sudden kick that sent Katara flying. I tried to adjust after that and gain a superior position, but she swept her foot under the deflector shield and knocked my feet out from under me, while a second motion knocked the sonic disruptor from my grasp and sent it spinning over our heads. "Nice toy. Mind if I borrow it?", she asked, leaping after it. She caught the sonic disruptor in mid-air and used it on Kim as she started to land. Kim went flying backward and slammed into a column, hitting the ground with a thud and staying prone for the moment. For a moment she didn't move and all I could hear from her was a groan. "I was going to ask how this thing works, but I guess that won't be necessary. Hahaha." Shego held the device toward Kim. "Looks like you lose after all, Kimmie."

I responded by smirking. "You really shouldn't have done that," I said.

Shego looked back to me with evil satisfaction written on her expression. "Oh yeah? Done what?"

"You just kicked Katara into the water fountain," I replied.

Shego laughed at that. "So? Why should I care that..."

A massive plume of water rushed out of the fountain and slammed into Shego, sending her flying into the wrecked perfume kiosk. The sonic disruptor fell out of her grasp. I used the sonic screwdriver to activate their attachment bond, causing the device to fly over to my hand.

Shego got up, scowling, and turned to find Katara coming at her again with water trailing from both hands. Green energy came to Shego's hands again and she lunged forward. This time Katara wasn't caught by surprise. Shego's martial arts skill was superb, but as a waterbender Katara was no slouch in that department herself, and the waterbending style lent itself to defensive maneuvers aimed at turning the opponent's strength against them. She weaved and dodged the strikes and struck Shego repeatedly with blasts of water to the face and arms. The villainess, dripping wet, hissed in anger and resumed her attack. Katara continued to weave and swing and duck as needed, employing the fluid motions of waterbending to keeping Shego from landing any hits while getting in several counterattacks herself.

That strategy finally paid off as Shego went for a solid hit on Katara's face and missed. Katara slipped around her, pulled her arms up, and all of the water on the ground rushed together and up until it covered Shego completely. With a single breath Katara hardened the water into ice, imprisoning Shego in a massive frozen plume. Shego stared wide-eyed through the ice until Katara used her bending to turn some of it back into water, at which point she started coughing until her lungs were clear.

Kim stood back up from where she'd fallen and stared with wide eyes. "Wow, that's pretty amazing."

"Thanks," Katara answered.

Middleton police came to drag Drakken and Shego away while other crews started cleaning up the melted Autons. Monique was quite pleased, or rather relieved, to hear that the manager she heard was coming had decided to leave the mall upon seeing the chaos wrought by the Autons, giving her time to fix up the store.

I spent the time scanning and making sure no pieces of the Autons were still viable before they were removed. When I returned to the TARDIS at the entrance to the Club Banana store, Kim and Liara were putting the final touches on one of the displays. I blinked. "Where is Katara?"

There was a gleeful shriek toward the back, at the dressing rooms. Kim smirked. "Monique though she needed some fashion tips."

Oh. Oh, I had to see this.

I admit to chuckling at seeing Katara staring at herself in the mirror, wearing a strapless dress that looked like it was meant to be taken to the prom. "Now, we should do something about the hair," Monique was saying. "Because girl, I see that hair and I'm thinking..."

"I like my hair the way it is," Katara insisted.

"Really?" Monique ran a finger along one of her hair loops and then examined one of the... tails... they can't be pig-tails, no spiral, too long... whatever you call the tails of hair Katara has coming down from below her brows. "It does look pretty... unique? What do you think, Kim?"

"I think she looks fine as she is."

"You do? Huh. Yeah, I guess..."

I continued to chuckle but stopped when I heard the footsteps at the entrance. "Oh man, you won't believe the day I had!" Ron Stoppable stepped into the shop, wearing what looked to be a work vest from a retail store. "Some little kids let the weasels out and I had to spend all day..." He stopped when he saw me and the others. "Woh, I thought that was your magic time-traveling box out there."

"Hello to you too, Jon... Jon Lockable, wasn't it?"

He frowned. "Oh come on, man, it's Ron. Ron Stoppable. How can you mess that up?"

"Just looking for a little levity, young man," I answered cheerily.

"So, what's with the mess out in the mall?"

"Oh, nothing much," Kim said. She walked up and gave him a peck of a kiss on the cheek. Huh. I guess they were a couple now too. "Just Dr. Drakken trying to conquer the world with an army of alien robot mannequins. We stopped them."

"Aw man, I missed the entire thing." Ron reached into his pocket and held out a wad of cash. "Well, if I couldn't be here to help with that, how about we go have dinner on me? It's special Naco Night over at the Bueno Nacho."

"Bueno... Nacho?" Katara looked at him with curiosity.

"Gastronomic menace," I sighed. "Seriously, what is it with you Yanks and your infatuation with these shops?"

"Hey, you're the one going around offering candy to everyone," Ron retorted.

"I think I've heard of this kind of food before," Liara said. "Vega always seemed to complain when he used the word 'nacho'."

"Ron has managed the impossible feat of being more devoted to his restaurant of choice than Harry is with that precious Burger King of his."

"Goddess, that sounds horrifying."

"Still, I could use a salad, at least," Kim said. She clasped Ron's right hand with her left. "Sure you don't want to come with?"

"A salad could work, I suppose," I said.

"Aw, come on, it's Naco Night," Ron insisted.

"I... guess I could try one," Katara suggested. "What's the harm?"

I shook my head and couldn't keep the grin off my face. At least the TARDIS had excellent plumbing.

The story doesn't end there, however. After dinner, and before Katara's digestive system could attempt a revolution out of protest, Kim's genius friend Wade provided us with the coordinates of the base Drakken had used when marshaling the Autons. His minions were gone. Presumably off to rescue their boss, or to find other employment. Preferably not in the evil industry.

And there, in the lower levels and the lab within, was the Crack. It spread through the walls on either end, hovering just above the ground by about four feet at its center. "Woh, that is so cool. Creepy, but cool," Ron said.

"So that's a dimensional tear between worlds?", Kim asked.

"Yes," I answered. "I'm still trying to determine the origins of them. Liara, anything yet?"

"I'm still not getting anything new," Liara replied. "The energy pattern does seem to have shifted slightly."

"Let me see." i walked over to her as she relayed the display to her omnitool. "Yes, look at that. The frequency is increasing."

"What does that mean?," Liara asked.

"I'm not yet sure." I walked over to the TARDIS monitor and looked over the readings again. "And still nothing new. Nothing that can tell me what's..."

"Hey, what's this?"

I turned my head and saw Kim walk closer to the Crack. She was about three feet from it when she bent over and picked something up. She walked it back to me and held the small white figure up. "It looks like a..."

"...it's a pawn," I said. "A chess pawn." I felt a frown come to my features as I scanned it. "And the temporal energy signature shows it came through the Crack."

"Why would someone throw a chess piece into another dimension?", Ron asked.

"It must be a message," Kim said.

I looked at it closely and finished scanning it. There was nothing harmful, but I wasn't going to take chances. I threw it back into the Crack. "It wasn't a message," I said. "It was a taunt."

"The being who was helping the Zygons and Cybermen," Liara said.

"And the Sontarans too, I suspect. Quite possibly the source of Xuandi's understanding of operating a vortex manipulator as well." I sighed.

"So you've got a mysterious archnemesis sending you chess pieces of cryptic taunts while he sics alien things on other worlds through these tears in the dimensions." Ron blinked. "Wow, and I thought our lives were complicated."

"If this mysterious archnemesis of yours ever shows up, just give us a call," Kim added. "We'll be glad to help."

Given the nature of my usual foes, I wasn't exactly going to be quick to call Kim and Ron in for such a fight. But I nodded and smiled. "Thank you, I'll let you know if I need you." I looked back to the Crack. "Well, nothing to do about that now. Let's get this Crack sealed up before anything nastier comes through."

"Define nastier."

"Weeping Angels," Liara suggested. "Daleks. Cybermen."

"You don't want to know," I said. "Now, Kim, Ron, if you would like to do the honors..."

I admit it was a risk. Ron does have that issue with clumsiness. But he performed quite well. We got the Crack all closed up.

Just in time too, given the look on Katara's face after we were done.

Fast food-quality Mexican food. Oi, the things you Humans do to your own bodies, it's enough to make my stomach turn.