Episode 1 - Part Two - The Ocean's Call

The stranger's look didn't exactly endure him to Tomo and the whole bizarre air around him just made her more apprehensive. ''Well, I'm glad 'bout that.'' She said, in the most deadpan and unimpressed way possible. ''Who are ya, anyways?''

''I'm the Doctor. Nice to meet you.'' The stranger introduced himself, albeit only by title curiously, and not really answering the question asked.

''A doctor o' what exactly?'' She asked, trying to get more information on the stranger in the suit currently stood in front of her.

The Doctor paused for a moment, caught off guard by the question, before a smile came over his face at the question. Tomo would've described it as ''the cat who'd found the supply of cream'', if she'd been asked to. ''Now there's a question no one asks enough... welcome aboard!''

Before she'd had chance to process what had just been said, the Doctor had gone back inside the police box, and Tomo, out of a sense of morbid curiousity, followed him to the doors of the wooden blue box, continuing her line of questioning through the doors... ''Aboard what? An' who are ya anyway?'' She asked, as she opened a single door, and stepped through the door...

''I told you, I'm the Doctor.'' Came the reply from just out of her line of sight, somewhere behind the large green floating... thing, in the middle of the room. In confusion at what she was seeing, Tomo struggled to do much other than keep to her line of questioning...

''That 'ent a name, that's a title...'' She stated, as she looked around the room. She could've sworn that box didn't lead anywhere behind it, other than a brick wall, but then again, that green glow had to be coming from somewhere, right? Confused by the strange lighting, she took a step through the doors...

...and almost immediately stepped back outside it again. ''Wha- that's... it's... what!?'' Tomo was an open minded person, or at least she considered herself so anyway, but this was just impossible. The room she'd stepped into had to have been at least five times larger than the area where the box was, and there was absolutely no way that an entire central tower, filled with glowing, green... stuff, and the stone supports around it, plus the stairs below, could've fit there! There was literally no imaginable way that she'd seen that, unless... ''Ahh, I get it now.'' She walked back through the doors, grinning as she did so. ''Yer a magician, ent ya!'' She had to admit, even if he had the air of a show off about him, that she was impressed by the effort he'd gone to in this not so little rouse...

'Magician!?'' The Doctor, on the other hand, certainly didn't look impressed as he poked his head from around the large tower in the centre. In fact, he looked positively scandalised! ''I'm not a magician!''

''Well what else could ya be?'' She asked, as the thoughts in her mind came together. The girl gave The Doctor a knowing grin, as she lent on one of the handrails... ''Ohh, yer a doctor of engineering, ent ya!''

The Doctor looked over with a look that could only be described as getting frustrated... ''I'm not a... oh, never mind.'' He thought briefly about giving an explanation of the concept of the five dimensional quantum engineering that went into growing a Type 40 TARDIS, and then decided against it. There really wasn't enough time in the universe to explain that to this girl... ''You came looking for me?''

''Yeah.'' Tomo's tone became much more sombre as she carried on. ''My friend, he's kinda disappeared.''

The Doctor shrugged. ''People go missing all the time. They come back all of the time too.''

''From a coma? In a hospital, under constant watch?'' Tomo raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, who suddenly appeared far more interested by that development. ''There's summat goin' on, Doc.''

''That is a new one...'' Actually, he had seen something like this before, but he was fairly sure that this one didn't involve Jack, a con, and that the person she was looking for growing a gas mask from his face. ''Don't suppose you can tell me any more about your friend, Tomo?''

''He was helping out with some new full dive VR tech. A company called Rath, I think.''

''As in the creature from Through the Looking Glass?'' The Doctor asked as Tomo shrugged. He was right, that was a creature in that book, but she couldn't say that was why it was chosen. ''Had tea with Lewis Carroll once, interesting man, makes a brilliant cuppa.'' He carried on, earning a raised eyebrow from Tomo for his statement.

''Yer completely mad, ya know that right?''

''Not mad, just... a little bit unlikely.'' He defended ineffectually as he adjusted the screen on the TARDIS console, now covered in Galifreyan text.

Tomo rolled her eyes at the defence - it was almost as believable as most of Kii-bou's excuses, really. She decided that it'd be easier to continue, without really delving deeper into that level of insanity... ''Thing is tho', Doc, I've spent the last two weeks combin' through every last bitta public data I can think of ta find him.'' The Doctor poked his head around the console with a quizzical look. ''Nought, nada, not a thing. It's like he disappeared inta thin air...''

The Doctor hummed a note to himself as he tapped on the centre console. ''Can you tell me a bit more about this VR tech?''

''Not really, Doc. We only know lil' bits about it, an' I'm not even sure Kii-bou really knew too much 'bout it either. I mean, ya can ask Aa-chan, but she'll probably tell ya what I just told ya too.''

''I think I'd like to meet this Aa-chan.'' The Doctor asked, still playing around with various controls and retrieving a mallet from under the console, before smacking it.

''Asuna.'' Tomo corrected, backing off slightly from the mad man with a mallet in a physics defying box, as any halfway sane person might...

''Hm?''

''Her name's Asuna. Aa-chan's just what I call her.'' Tomo stated, as the Doctor flipped a lever on a panel...

/-/

As much of a hard time as she'd given Tomo about her sleeping habits this morning, Asuna had to admit that hers weren't too much better at the moment either. She hadn't slept properly since Kazuto had disappeared almost two weeks ago, and the fatigue was starting to become more apparent. Her reflexes, finely tuned from her days in the death game, and the rehabilitation from it, had started to fade. In fact, that fatigue had gotten to the point that even Rika had asked her to take a rest, lest she burn herself out.

She'd reluctantly agreed with them, and taken a break from ALO, only returning to offer updates on the hunt for Kirito... not that there were any, if she was honest. No matter what Tomo had done, they'd drawn blanks everywhere they looked...

Even her general demeanour had changed, albeit only slightly. Remarkably, the first person to notice that was her mother, who'd asked her why, despite her enthusiasm for the virtual world, and how passionately she'd defended it to her... she was spending far less time there, and so soon after. Having heard her daughter out, she had at least offered attempts to comfort her, and seemed genuinely concerned over Kazuto's fate. After all, it wasn't every day that a person disappears from a coma in a hospital bed, with nary a trace to be found, and she knew that.

In the hope of cheering her up and showing her own research on the matter, Shino had offered to take her out for lunch, and asked if she'd meet her at the Dicey Cafe, which was why she was heading through the park. Any other day, and she'd have been focusing on how beautiful the blossoms on the sakuras were, the shades of pink contrasting with the vibrant greenery of the grass, and the grey stones of the path through the park itself, but today she found herself thinking of just what could've happened to Kazuto...

VWOOOP, VWOOOP, VWOOOP...

That reverie was interrupted by a strange wooshing noise, and an errant thought of the wind picking up told Asuna to look around the park. She'd noted the specific details of the park as she passed through here numerous times, but one thing in particular stood out - a blue box near one of the tallest sakura trees.

A box that definitely hadn't been there when she'd entered the park.

Inspecting the box as she walked around it, Asuna came to one conclusion - it definitely didn't fit the aesthetic of the area. The dulled blue colour scheme with English text on it, proclaiming it to be a police box, a concept that Asuna had never even so much as heard of, let alone understood... it felt wrong. There was no other way of putting it, it simply felt as if it was not of this earth. Taking a risk and running her hand across it, she could tell it was definitely wood, but the bizarre thing about it was the heat surrounding it. The air around the box had heated significantly, almost like standing near the exhaust of a vehicle. Why would a wooden box heat up the air around it, was the most pressing question on her mind... or at least it was, until the door opened.

Asuna jumped back, not knowing what might step out. For a brief moment, the heat in the air disappeared, replaced by a blast of cooler air, and Asuna blinked in confusion. Just what was this box?!

''I am tellin' ya, Doc, we have not... moved?!'' Much to her surprise, it was Tomo who stepped out of the box, her friend's usual smile replaced by a very unfamiliar look - one of complete confusion as she almost completely missed her, dashing around each side of the box, and rattling off a million words a minute about how impossible this was.

''Tomo!'' She called out, watching as her friend continued to move around as if she were a child on a sugar rush.

''Aa-chan?!'' Tomo stopped dead in her tracks, before launching herself towards Asuna, and drawing her into a brief hug. ''Okay, Doc, seriously... how the hell d'ya do that?!''

''It's called the TARDIS, it's my ship.'' A tall, brown haired man stepped outside of the box, putting on a beige trench coat as he left the doors. His hair had been gelled up in a messy way, almost as if it had been styled simply by running a hand through it, whilst the brown pinstripe suit with light blue shirt that he wore looked slightly worn around the poorly fastened collar, and his simple red tie was also loosely tied. Altogether, she would've said that he had quite an unkempt appearance, though that would only be noticeably to anyone looking. The stranger stopped in his tracks, noticing her and looking her over.

Asuna was no stranger to men looking her over, as much as she would have preferred to have been. She was the daughter to Shoujo Yuuki after all, and business types were ruthless. If they felt that getting into bed with the Yuuki heiress would further their ambitions, they would do it without a thought for anyone else... much less herself.

This was different however - those had been lustful looks, or sheer, unbridled arrogance. The stranger was looking her over with a sense of curiousity, as if he had no idea who she was. Though, truth be told, and with the stranger's quite clearly European looks, and... British, perhaps, accent, maybe he genuinely did have no idea who she was.

''You must be Asuna! Hello!'' He stated, with a toothy grin. ''I'm the-''

''You're a Doctor, right?'' She answered, remembering Tomo's words as she'd exited the box.

''I'm The Doctor. I'm here to help with your friend.'' Asuna looked The Doctor in the eyes, and felt a chill run down her spine. It was often said that the eyes are the gateway to the soul, and The Doctor's, well... his youthful looks and cheerful demeanour were betrayed by those brown eyes. It felt as if she was staring down into an eternal abyss, something so completely impossible in its nature that it was rendered impossible to describe effectively. The words for it simply didn't exist in any language.

Asuna couldn't tell why, especially as she had more reasons not to trust him than to trust him... and yet, she found herself immediately placing her trust in the man.

Perhaps it was that Tomo was looking at him with a look she'd never seen before, a sense of wonderment on her face as she continued to waltz around the, TARDIS, was it?

/-/

Having listened to the girls' story, The Doctor was none the wiser on what was happening with this. He did however, have a number of questions - the most pressing of which... Virtual reality technology like this? There was no way that Earth should've had that this early, at least not if he remembered his history...

Though, that wasn't the important part - that was the fate of this Kazuto lad. Apparently a survivor of the Sword Art Online death game - another section of history that he was sure wasn't in the history books - he had began to settle down, preparing to head off to university and was working for a ''technology company'' called Rath. The literary connection aside, neither girl seemed to know much about this company nor the project their friend was involved with, until Asuna had bought something up - the heart monitoring chip that Rath had seen fit to implant in him, and the app that she had to monitor it.

He thought slightly better about bringing up the quandary of moral dilemmas that she'd unwittingly bought up there, before almost immediately dashing to the TARDIS.

''Doc, where ya goin'?!'' He heard Tomo shout as the two girls picked themselves up off the bench, before following after him.

''TARDIS, we can track your friend!'' He shouted back, opening the doors and rushing in. The two girls weren't far behind, and whilst the initial shock of the five dimensional quantum engineering (or magic, as she'd rather rudely suggested...) had worn off for Tomo, the same could not be said for Asuna. The chestnut haired girl stood on the ramp, her hands shaking slightly as she held onto the railings.

''Th-this is impossible...''

''Not impossible, just very unlikely-'' He replied nonchalantly, before looking to Tomo. ''-and definitely not magic.'' The girl in question rolled her eyes. ''Asuna, can I have your phone? If I'm a bit clever, and I'm more than a bit clever, I can route it through the console, and use it to track the signal back to his location.'' Wordlessly, the girl nodded and handed The Doctor her phone, and he began the brief process of plugging it in, and tracing the signal back. A myriad of symbols came up on the screen, as he pulled it round the console and began to decipher the Old Galifreyan text.

Except, that couldn't have been right. Why would he have been there? ''Well, I've found your friend... he's in the Pacific Ocean? Bit weird, that.'' The look of astonishment and bewilderment on Asuna's face was quickly replaced by a look of confusion at the statement.

Unsurprisingly from what he knew of the pair so far, Tomo had the more expressive reaction - her eyes going wide as she tried to process that information, before deciding to voice her concern. ''He's in the sea, Doc? The hell's he doin' there!?''

''Dunno, let's find out, shall we!'' He asked, before pulling the lever to set off... wherever they were going, he really hoped there was enough solid ground to land the TARDIS on. The last thing he wanted was for them to have to swim to the location...

{Author's Comments}

So, am I writing this story for the Tenth Doctor, or the Fourteenth Doctor? Yes, if you haven't seen the Power of The Doctor, then you... actually, you're reading a Dr Who story on a fanfiction site, I imagine you already know who the new Doctor is!

I've got to admit, I'm cautiously optimistic for the three specials next November. Bit miffed we've now got a 13 month wait till them, but oh well.

Apologies for this being about two months late as well, but I will try to be a little bit less ridiculous with the gap for the next chapter, which will go up either December 1st, or New Year's Day. Not sure which though, yet.

Anyway, if you've enjoyed this (and I hope its not been too disappointing given the three month wait...), please leave a review, follow it and/or favourite it!

Signing off,

Midland 2541.