"This way sweetie, hurry it up!" River called out as she raced toward the cave where the lightning had struck.
"I am hurrying, not my fault I don't have long legs." Annabeth skidded to a stop as she yelled, almost running into River's stopped form.
Ahead was a huge caldera with a glowing energy rift in the center, directly over a large, square, black box. Bolts of energy randomly flew from the rift, appearing to vaporize whatever they touched.
"What happened?" Annabeth asked, awed by the sight in front of her.
"Well, judging by the size, I'd say the Doctor didn't know what hit him, though where he went off to, I've no idea," River turned back toward Annabeth and continued, "I do know, though, that we've got an Investigator horde probably on its way. The good news is they're all going to be fictional constructs. The bad news – we'll have to fight investigators. Ready for a challenge, sweetie?"
"Always," Annabeth responded, perfectly coinciding with the arrival of a swarm of the insect like creatures, which she now knew were called Investigators. Annabeth reached for her knife in her pocket, but accidentally knocked the metallic ball the Doctor had given her out of her pocket.
The second it hit the ground, it began to whirr. The ground underneath it began to change into some kind of perfectly smooth material, and it was spreading. As it touched the investigators, they began to shift into symmetrical columns with roundels.
"Jump!" River yelled as she slammed into Annabeth, sending them both flying toward the rift. A bolt of energy hit them, and they vanished, just as the changing ground reached the land around the rift, sealing it.
Percy stumbled to his feet, still woozy from the sudden psychic backlash of two beings fighting for his head. As he stood, his eyes changed color, and a word he had never heard before escaped his lips – amaranth. Behind him, the sound of a Faction vessel materializing could be heard; he turned to greet it, but it was not his voice that uttered the greeting.
"Hello my family," a powerful voice boomed, "Now is our time to rise. The Doctor, in his foolishness, has given us a way to continue existing – the amaranth, the last piece of rationalizing technology left in existence, and it is in our grasp. We can come and go, create paradoxes, cross our time lines without fear, as it will keep this section of the Web of Time from evening tattering. For Paradox! For Death! For Alter Tiiiiiiiiiiime!" He reached out and took a cloak from one of the cousins, and draped it over his head and shoulders. "The Grandfather lives again," he hissed under his breath.
Annabeth nearly wretched as she came to her senses. When the bolt of energy had struck her, it had felt as if all her molecules were being torn apart, then forcibly put back together.
"What was that?" she mumbled, trying to stay on her feet.
"Matter/Energy beam, sweetie, we're inside a fictional rift now," River smiled as she help Annabeth steady herself. "We need to find the Doctor," she mumbled to herself, "but where could he be?"
They both walked forward and studied their surroundings. They were in a large, circular room with a colossal dome enclosing it. There were twelve chairs in the room, each with a mosaic of a superhuman figure built into the wall above; a great fire burned in a huge, lavish hearth set in the opposite wall. Colossal windows lined the walls at regular intervals, and bright, golden sunlight streamed through them onto River's and Annabeth's faces.
"This is Olympus," Annabeth whispered in awe, "but where are the Gods?"
As Annabeth spoke, the wall farthest from them exploded inward as a limp figure smashed through it. River and Annabeth quickly rushed toward it, and Annabeth was shocked to see the prone form of Poseidon lying in front of her. A large foot stepped through the wreckage, and powerful arms tore the dome off the room. A loud voice boomed out:
MY SON, YOU WILL NOT GET THE CHANCE TO REJOIN YOUR TRAITOROUS SIBLINGS EVER AGAIN.
"Not on your life," River snarled as she fired off two quick shots with her gun. The Titan stumbled backwards, but quickly regained its balance.
The monstrous, titanic being faced River, and angrily raged, FOOLISH MORTAL, YOU DARE INTERFERE WITH OUR WAR? YOU SHALL PAY FOR YOUR INSOLENCE! The being, obviously a Titan, snarled as it lunged for River.
A lightning bolt hit its powerful form squarely in the chest, launching it backwards, and a young voice mocked the Titan, "Father, this battle is between you and me. Unless of course you are too scared!" From out of the shadows, Zeus emerged, glowing with his earth-shattering power. "Now," he growled, "FACE ME!" With that, he sent a barrage of lightning bolts slamming into his father's shocked figure, nearly toppling the giant.
Annabeth raced out of the chamber on River's heels, both stopping when they reached a safe distance. Behind them, the sky was alight with bolts of lightning and the gleam of a monstrous scythe; ahead of them, the ground was a desolate wasteland, evidence of the war which had been occurring. But, the most shocking sight of all was the sky: It was sliced to ribbons, and it bore the Doctor's face, shaped out of the stars themselves. "
"Doctor!" River screamed to the sky.
A rumbling voice answered, sounding as if it was in great pain, "The Fictional Generator, River, disconnect me from it…"
"We'll save you Doctor, don't worry," Annabeth responded, "Which way is it, Doctor!" The Doctor did not respond, though.
"Since you know what this place is, where would the base of it be, what is it built on?" River asked as she spun around to look at Annabeth.
"Tartarus," Annabeth responded with a shiver, "but I have no idea how to get there."
"Well then, sweetie, we should probably get looking," River paused and looked back at the battling forms of Zeus and Kronos, than continued, "I don't want to get caught in the crossfire of those two." Punctuating her remark, a huge chunk of the sky came crashing down near them, rending a pit straight through the earth. Fire flared out of it, and River smiled:
"There's our entrance, let's get moving."
River and Annabeth carefully maneuvered down through the rubble and descended into the pit. They pushed deeper and deeper, soon losing even the light that shown from the entrance. They descended for what seemed like hours, never pausing or resting, knowing that their lives depended on finding the fictional generator. Finally, they arrived at a huge door, ornately carved and inlaid with golden Gallifreyan gliffs.
"Knock-knock," called out River as she readied her blaster. Annabeth pulled out her knife and slapped her cap onto her head.
"They can't hit what they can't see," Annabeth laughed as she prepared to fight.
The door flew open, and hordes of the insect-like armored beings rushed out in a mad stampede, crawling over each other to get closer to their prey. The cavernous room reverberated as more creatures descended to the floor from the monstrous pillars that held the vaunted ceiling in place. River was the first to attack, dropping three with one shot.
"Go!" she yelled to Annabeth, "Get the fictional generator and deactivate it! Go!"
Annabeth ran straight into the mass of creatures, slicing all the ones that got in her way. She plunged head long through the monstrous doors and emerged inside a small room with a hexagonal shaped console, covered in buttons and levers, in the center. Set on top of the console was the Doctor's fictional generator, glowing with random bursts of purple energy. She walked toward it, but was thrown backwards by one of the creatures. It stood over her and prepared to cut her in two. Without thinking, Annabeth rolled under its legs and jumped up behind it. She plunged her knife in between its shoulder armor and sliced. It dissolved into mist and dispersed.
Annabeth stood up on her shaking legs and trudged to the console. She grabbed the fictional generator and was immediately assaulted with electricity, causing her muscles to spasm. However, she didn't drop the orb and focused on the Doctor's face. A purple bolt launched out from the fictional generator and hit the ground about 3 feet from Annabeth, the shocked form of the Doctor materializing in the blast.
"Whew, thank you Annabeth. You know, having yourself chopped to ribbons is not fun, and it hurts! Stupid TARDIS and fictional generator decided that I was Uranus. Stupid machine, though, I guess it did manage to get us all here. Now, where's River?" the Doctor began to say even as he was materializing.
"She's out there, fighting off the investigators," Annabeth responded, "We have to hurry and save her."
"Yes, of course we do, let's go," the Doctor responded as he took off running. As they stepped into the large chamber, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and waved it around the cavern, disintegrating all the investigators. He rushed toward River's apparently unconscious form.
"River, speak to me, you can't die now." The Doctor performed mouth-to-mouth and CPR on River's still body, until she coughed and spluttered,
"I'm all right Doctor, and behave, there are young people watching," she weakly smiled.
"What?"
"Nothing, just help me up."
Annabeth and the Doctor helped River up and they all trugged slowly back up out of Tartarus.
The dark watcher slowly twisted his finger through the Spiral Politic, building the Enemy's power base and shrinking the Homeworld's, without either side knowing what was going on. He watched as the Doctor led the memeovore's assault on Mictlan. But, just as the memevore was about to devour the Black Box TARDISes, the dark watcher snapped a thread in the Web, and the TARDISes slipped through time to Earth, circa 4000 B.C. He smiled to himself, and then turned to watch the War, enjoy the chaos that it fed him.