Authors notes: I just want to state that 'the Impostor' is in no way a criticism of the 13th Doctor as some have suggested. She's more inspired by a strange woman I knew at University who I mentioned in previous authors notes, and yes, the woman I knew actually talked like this.

I've also edited the last chapter so the alien woman Impostor also has a third eye in her forehead and pointy ears to further show that she's alien, not a human.

To clear the air, my opinion on Doctor 13 is she has potential, but I just wish the writers would give the actress something to properly chew on to show the range of her acting talent, and the stories have been lacking to say the least.

This chapter was also a pain to write, because I wanted to get across what kind of character the Impostor is without making her sound too preachy, boring, nor drag the story too much. Hopefully a good dose of Ravens famous sarcasm has off set how irritating the Impostor character is, and I've deliberately wrote her to be irritating.

Chapter 36

A Strange, Strange Place.

This three eyed, pointy eared alien woman, Raven had decided to just call 'The Impostor,' since she would not say her real name, seemed to know what she was doing when it came to piloting the TARDIS. Where she got that information from Raven didn't know. She was certainly no Time Lord but Raven guessed anyone could learn to operate the TARDIS.

"Are we heading towards the Doctor?" Raven asked, her eyes glowing.

"Yes," the alien woman said, and Raven did not feel any deceit in her words. "How did you know I was not the Doctor? It was my third eye isn't it? You think people with a third eye can't possibly be Time Lords!"

"Umm..." Raven didn't know how to respond to that, it was a really weird statement to make. "I can sense everything about you. You only have one heart, you don't have telepathic powers, nor a respiratory by-pass system, nor do you have a hint of regeneration energy about you, and..."

"That doesn't mean I'm not a Time Lord!" the alien woman said in outrage.

"It kind of implies it does." Raven said back. The Impostors eyes grew wide as if this was the worst thing Raven could say to her.

"You think Galirial cannot be Time Lords?" that must be her species.

"I've never heard of your species, and I don't care. You've kidnapped the Doctor and..."

"I am a Time Lord, I AM!" The Impostor insisted, Raven was fast running out of patience with her.

"Once we recover the Doctor, I'll crush your neck." She threatened. "If you regenerate then I'll be convinced you're a Time Lord."

Ka'Chud, and the TARDIS landed, that was quick, and Raven marched the Impostor out of the TARDIS. The plump woman seemed to have trouble getting through the narrower police box doors, so Raven shoved her out herself.

The Police Box had landed in a forest. The sun was shining, the grass was green, and they had landed in a small field of flowers between trees.

Raven closed and locked the TARDIS door to stop the Impostor dipping back in. Raven then floated up so she could get her bearings. The place had tall snow peaked mountains off in the distance, the sea was on another side and in the middle of this valley there appeared to be a castle and a village in the distance.

Raven looked down and saw the Impostor pull a key out of her pocket and insert it into the TARDIS lock.

The key was ripped from the Impostors fingers and it sailed into Raven's open hands as she descended to the ground. Weirdly, this key wasn't the usual spade shape of the TARDIS key, this key was a yale type key. Why did the Impostor think she could get into the TARDIS with this?

"I... was just going to check if I'd left the handbrake on." and she tried to push on the door but it refused to open for her.

"Take your hands off my stuff!" Raven insisted.

"This is my TARDIS now!" The Impostor insisted, rather stupidly as Raven picked the purple woman up and pushed her away from the Police Box.

Raven raised her arms and decided to push the TARDIS into another dimension for now, she could always call it back later. The TARDIS was now shrouded in dark energy.

"Azarath Metrion Zynthos!" Raven cried. But nothing happened.

Maybe she'd cast it wrong, it had been a while since she'd used this spell. She repeated the hand gesture and tried again. The box shuddered as Raven's powers tried to shove it between dimensions, but it refused to budge from this world. Weird.

The last time this didn't work the TARDIS had been on a ship in hyperspace, a place already between the dimensions of space and time. But looking around, this place looked ordinary.

She looked back at the alien woman who smiled nervously. Raven didn't need to read her mind to understand that smirk. Likely her plan was to lead Raven away, then double back, get into the TARDIS and take off again. To prevent that Raven considered turning this woman to stone until she found the Doctor, but Raven had a feeling she'd need her for now. Raven reasoned, the Impostor wanted the TARDIS, Raven needed the Impostor. So Raven would take the TARDIS with them, but she'd need to make it inaccessible to the Impostor without Raven to undo it.

Raven turned back to the Police Box and rested a hand on each pillar on its front.

"I'm sorry about this. But I'm just doing it to keep you safe. Okay?" and she charged her powers, the Police Box was covered in black energy again. "Azarath Metrion Zynthos!" She cried and as she collapsed her hands together its as if the TARDIS shrank down into her closing palms. When she parted them the TARDIS had gone entirely.

"NO!" The Impostor shouted, rushing up to her, taking her hands and almost bending her fingers backwards to look for any trace of the Police Box.

"What happened to it?!" the Impostor cried.

"It's in here." Raven said, tapping a finger on her head. "In my mind, where you can't reach it."

"But..." the woman looked like she was on the verge of crying, "I need the TARDIS. I'm the Doctor now!"

Ravens mouth again moved to one side of her face. "So start acting like one."

As they walked through the forest Raven unfortunately had to find out about this woman because she would not shut up.

"I'm the head of LINDA, the London Investigation N' Detective Agency." the Impostor said. Raven assumed it was some kind of organisation of real detectives, but it turned out to be just a fan group centred around the Doctor. It wasn't even based in London anymore. Since apparently the advancement of super light speed communications meant 'LINDA had gone galactic'.

"We've always known the Doctor existed, and we've charted and documented as many of his adventures as we can." She was a Doctor fan girl clearly, but...

"If you love him so much, why do you want to kidnap and replace him?" Raven had asked.

"Because he hardly ever uses his great power and influence." The alien woman explained. "He merely uses it to unlock doors so he can beat back Daleks and Cy... and the Master and things like that."

"That's not enough for you?" Raven asked, astonished she wanted the Doctor to do more than 'merely' both liberate and save peoples lives.

"Well, what he does is good and stuff. But I want him to teach people too. I go to plenty of protests and marches, and I just think how easy it'd be for us if the great Doctor stood with us against the bad guys!" The Impostor said passionately.

Tell people what to do in other words.

"You know, one of us met the Doctor and asked him to do just that. Do you know what he said?" The Impostor said as if what the Doctor said was scandalous.

"Which answer will shut you up faster?" Raven said flatly.

"He refused!" The Impostor said, speaking over her. "He said we needed to sort out these problems ourselves, that he couldn't 'hold our hands through everything' we had to make 'decisions ourselves without his interference'. But you know there are people who disagree with our cause so we never win! There is such ignorance in the Galaxy!"

"Life is so cruel." Ravens voice was heavy with sarcasm.

"So I will do the good the Doctor refuses." The Impostor said proudly. "That is why I shall be the greatest Doctor ever. The Universe will just love me for teaching and bringing love, peace and tolerance to the Galaxy and beyond!"

Raven rolled her eyes. This creature couldn't win a fight with a paper bag, never mind an army of Cybermen. Raven also suspected she wanted to replace the Doctor for more selfish reasons than angelic ones. The angelic reasons were just a cover.

"Let me get this straight. You think the person who first called himself the Doctor, who established the legend of the Doctor, the reputation of the Doctor, the deeds the Doctor is known for. Is suddenly not worthy of the name he gave himself because he doesn't do as you wish; and you think you are more worthy to be called 'Doctor'? Despite never travelling in Space nor Time, never fought Evil before, and can't take people doubting your credibility without whining about it?" There was an awkward silence. "Yeah, I'd be so confident with you at the controls of the TARDIS."

"His reputation and legend has evolved beyond the capacity of the real person." The woman stood proudly, as if she could fill his shoes. "It's time for new blood to take over." She beamed.

Don't tempt me. Raven thought darkly when the woman mentioned 'blood'.

The alien woman then went on a long spiel about how virtuous she was. But Raven wasn't listening, she'd tuned it out. All she wanted was the Doctor back, that was it. Raven would probably be more open to learning about this woman and her struggles, if she hadn't kidnapped the Doctor to start with and then acted like it was entirely justified, because her goals justified the means to reach them. It was taking a lot of restraint to not use her powers on her.

Try to be nice. Just try.

Can't I just damage her vocal cords a little?

No!

Seal her mouth shut?

No!

Can I at least take her tongue?

I SAID NO! That's even worse.

I know.

Suddenly the Impostor grabbed her shoulder to get her attention. Raven turned and saw the Impostor flapping her lips. The alien woman stopped, looked left and right and looked outraged as she'd noticed Raven had put wads of cotton in her ears.

Raven reached up and pulled them out. "What?"

"You haven't been listening to a word I said! Have you, you nasty Dalek!" The woman spat. Whatever a 'Dalek' was, Raven guessed it was an insult of some kind, but she didn't know this woman, didn't care about her approval so it was all just sticks and stones to her.

"You're right, I haven't." Raven said flatly in reply, and the alien woman got really annoyed again. Getting annoyed at stuff seemed to be her core character trait.

"Why you little!" But she shrank away as Ravens eyes glowed again. Then she seemed to get some bravery back. "What species are you?"

"Demon." Raven said to scare her.

"Are you making fun of me?" The alien woman asked indignantly. Raven didn't know how her answer was seen as mocking to her, but the goth girl shrugged and walked on with the alien woman treading behind her.

The aliens aura was strange. As if conflicted. As if she felt the way she should interact with Raven depended entirely upon one thing she couldn't figure out. Going by her last question Raven guessed the alien woman wanted to know her species, as if that would inform the way she should talk to her. Why the alien woman would think that, Raven wasn't sure.

"Kaled, Sconnon, Rills, Dominator, human, are you a Gallifreyan?" the woman listed. Raven could sense that this woman held a great deal of dislike for those species. Oh great, this woman was prejudice, and Raven now got the feeling if she admitted she was a human she'd never hear the end of it from this three eyed creature. So to keep peace Raven didn't answer, and the Impostor just seemed to get more annoyed.

They were now approaching a bridge over a river with a large creature guarding it. Large, green skin, muscly, twice the size of a normal human and it hauled a great big club in its hands. It was a Troll, a literal Troll, and he was guarding the bridge.

"Stand back," The Impostor said, "and I'll show you why I am a good Doctor. All Monsters fear the Doctor."

I don't fear you. Raven thought. And I am a monster.

The Impostor walked up to the Troll and held her hands on her lapels and tried to stand with some stance of authority.

This aught to be good. Raven thought.

"Now see here creature, we want to cross this bridge." She said in a demanding tone. "I know you understand me, now speak!" The Troll looked at her like she was something nasty.

"What have we got here?" The Troll asked in a gravelly voice, "Someone going for seconds at a dinner party?" it mocked and looked at her stomach. The look on the Impostors face showed she did not like that remark. She opened her mouth to speak again but the Troll cut her off. "What are you, a wingless penguin?" again the alien woman in the tuxedo was now flustered. "Just go roll away."

"Look here you monster! I've always stood up to monsters and bullies like you." and the woman kicked the Troll sharply in the shin. The Troll did not like that. "Fear me, monster for I am the Doctor and I am... AHhh!"

"...kind of stupid." Raven added as the Impostor was hauled off her feet and thrown across the grass into a mud pit.

Raven hovered over the Impostors prone form as she stared up into the air as if astonished at the reaction she'd gotten from the Troll. Raven's head appeared from above her vision.

"Yeah, the monster is clearly terrified of you." Raven's voice heavy with sarcasm. Leaving the woman Raven went back to the Troll.

"Oh, I'm getting attacked by the Living Dead now!" the Troll said in a feeble attempt at mockery. "Or are you a Sith? You gonna attack me with your Force?"

"Can I pass?" Raven asked.

The Troll leaned down to look at her. "No!" he said. Raven waved her hands in front of her face because the Trolls breath stank. "No one is allowed to cross this bridge, I am here to guard it. What are you gonna do? Splash me with your delicious tears?!"

Raven looked at the Trolls club and she took a step forwards. Her eyes didn't glow as she suppressed her powers, for now. If she was going to power up then this Troll was going to throw the first punch, not her.

But the Troll didn't move, it just blocked her way and made no attempt to attack her no matter how close she got. Eventually she got close enough to stand inches from him and the only thing stopping her was his body. The thing just continued to fling insults. "Do you ever wash your hair?"

Raven raised an eyebrow, shrugged and walked away a little down the river and using her powers she just walked across the water, dragging the Impostor behind her, again with her powers.

"Oi, you can't do that!" The Troll shouted.

"Try and stop me." Raven said as she landed on the other side of the river, the Impostor having been dragged through the actual water, which she did deliberately. The funny thing was the river was shallow enough to walk through anyway. So why bother interacting with the Troll when he's not even in the way?

As Raven walked on the Troll left his bridge and bounded after them. He looked aggressive, sounded aggressive, but when he got nearer he seemed to lose steam, give up and go back to his bridge. The Impostor dusted herself down and ran to catch Raven up.

"Why didn't you attack him?!" The Impostor asked. "You have the power to show him!"

"He's not worth the effort." Raven said shrugging.

"Yeah, but he could hurt someone else if we don't deal with him!" The Impostor insisted.

"If someone wants to approach that creature and square up to it then that's their business." Raven dismissed.

"But he goaded me into attacking." The Impostor shouted as if this was a terrible crime. "Then he attacked me. When we find someone in charge I'll have it arrested!"

"Sticks and Stones. You lost your temper and threw the first punch. The Doctor would never throw the first punch." Raven sighed. "Please, tell me again why you think you'd make a good Doctor."

"Easy for you to say. Do you know how many people suffer because of..." but Raven had replaced the wads of cotton in her ears again with her power. She wasn't interested in the Doctors lectures, never mind the whinings of this pretender.

"Tell me about it." Raven said when the alien girl stopped flapping her lips just to pretend like she was listening.

Eventually they made it to the village. It looked like they were in maybe the early 20th or late 19th century on Earth. The buildings and architecture looked to be European, the streets were cobbly and everyone was rushing around keeping themselves busy.

"Where to next?" Raven said, and added "Doctor" in a mocking tone as the soaking wet alien looked around.

"He's being held in the castle up there." The Impostor pointed, there was no deceit in her words.

As they walked through the village Raven became aware of something. Something she couldn't quite put her finger on. What would the Doctor do? Examine and deduce.

Okay, what could she say about the people? They were... not all human. Everyone was a different species of alien. Some wolf like creatures, some globby aliens, some green creatures, and some with multiple limbs.

Raven wasn't threatened, it was just weird that the place looked like a classical European Village and yet it was full of aliens. But she just mentally shrugged. It was actually nice to see aliens living together and cooperating for a change instead of being at each others throats like they usually are.

Things really took a strange turn when she passed in front of a cafe and she could swear she saw... No, she must be dreaming, or insane, or maybe there was some costume event going on or something.

But she could swear in the chairs outside that cafe were Batman and Superman!

Raven had heard of Batman and Superman, two of Earths mightiest heroes. But what were they doing here of all places?

She realised she was staring as she walked past them, so she looked away but still listened into their conversation.

"Do you know what I would've done?" Batman said in a low voice as he held a coffee cup.

"Thrown a batarang at him?" Superman joked.

"No." Batman said and there was an awkward silence, "okay, yes."

"Dude, awesome idea!" Did Superman just use the word 'dude'? "Why don't we team up, it'll be awesome!"

"I don't team up with other supers."

"Because it interrupts your brooding and 'lonely rich kid with issues' image?" Superman mocked.

"No. It's BECAUSE I'M..."

"Batman?!" Superman finished and Batman looked a little annoyed.

"Yes... It's BECAUSE I'M BATMAN!"

Ravens mouth mouthed a 'What the f...' She never expected Batman nor Superman to behave like this. Something strange was going on.

Suddenly the ground then began to rumble and people were fleeing into their homes.

"Gotta go!" Superman said and flew off into the air like a bullet. Batman took a last sip from his coffee cup, pulled out a grappling hook, fired it into the air and despite it not latching onto anything pulled himself away as the rumbling continued.

"What's going on?" Raven asked, it felt like footsteps; Giant footsteps.

"GIANTS!" cried one of the villagers as they all ran for cover. Giants? If there were Giants why weren't Batman nor Superman going to fight them? Why did they run away?

"Come on, we've got to hide!" said the Impostor pulling on Ravens arms. But Raven refused. She was overdue a good deed so a couple of giants should be easy to take down, surely.

She moved to a corner of a building and waited for the giants to come around the side. The Impostor followed her, trying to convince her to take cover.

"Fee-fi-fo-fum" said an echoing voice "We smell the blood of Englishmen!"

Englishmen? What Englishmen?

The stamping came again and it felt like something should be coming around the corner of this building, but there was nothing there. No giants, nothing. Were they invisible? Raven couldn't sense them and...

"Fee-fi-fo-fum, I'm..." the echoing voice stopped. "Here! What you two doing standing there?" Said a high pitched, comical voice much closer to the ground.

Raven looked down and saw a party of five little, blue elf like creatures with bulbous noses, they were wearing white caps and pants, and they were no taller than her shins. They all had large platform boots on and one was carrying a megaphone he had been shouting into.

"Where are the giants?" Raven asked as her brow dropped.

"Here! We are the giants!" The elves said.

"What?!" Raven was clueless. "You guys aren't giants, you're too little."

"There's more to being a giant than size you know." One of the little elves spoke up.

"Uhh... No there isn't." Raven said, "Giants are usually thirty feet tall or more."

"Yeah, well some of us are and some of us ain't." Another elf said in a funny voice. "In fact we admit as giants we are petite."

What lunacy is this? Raven thought.

"Leave them alone." The Impostor suddenly spoke up. "They can call themselves giants if they want."

"But they're not. Giants are enormous creatures." Raven turned back to the elves. "Mouse sized giants make no sense, they don't exist."

POP!

Raven leapt back as the elves vanished as if they had never existed.

"What have you done?!" The Impostor cried, "You've 'unpersoned them'!"

"All I said was, giants have to be large." Raven was confused over what had just happened. Had her calling out their nonsense somehow ended their existence?

"GUARDS, GUARDS!" The Impostor cried, "She 'Unpersoned' someone. She's an evil Dalek, get her! Get her!"

Creak, creak, creak, creak, and around the corner came... What the hell is going on? Wooden soldiers! Giant, wooden English Palace soldiers the size of a man. Red coats were painted on them, large hats with lanterns that shone brightly, and a key turned in their backs. They swayed from side to side as they walked with their wooden rifles.

They approached and surrounded her, but Raven just gently lifted herself up and hovered in the air out of their reach.

Whatever these guards were they weren't very well made as they reached up to get her despite her being well out of range of their grasping hands. They were like a bunch of zombies.

Raven watched as the Impostor bounded for a dark alley and disappeared. Good, she'd had all she could stomach of that alien.

Looking around a little more she could see a lot of strange things just in this one village. The first odd thing was what looked like a hooded figure leaping off a windmill at the back and landing in a haystack before leaping out and sprinting away. The next was some kind of character in green with a sword smashing pots in a shop with the store owner not batting an eyelid. Looking into the sky she saw the moon... But that was no moon. It had lights on it and a massive crater on one hemisphere, a space station of some kind. Also in the sky was some massive red space ship with long prongs sticking out the front and an asteroid in its belly.

Then Raven was spooked as something flew over her head. A car! An old fashioned type car that was flying! It had kite wings and spinning propellers as it carried four people who sounded like they were singing, music was following them. The car was chittering along and every once in a while its tail pipe backfired twice.

Flying cars, Batman and Superman, giant space stations? What kind of strange planet was this?

Gently she set herself down outside the village, and she barely made it two steps before a giant, green pipe sprouted from the soil and from it jumped a short, chubby man and a tall, lanky man both with large noses and moustaches, and both dressed in red and green respectfully. They were also clearly cartoon characters!

Cartoon characters?! Had she hit her head? Was she in a coma and these were her dreams?

Suddenly some kind of blue blur circled around and around them. It came to a stop and some kind of bipedal rodent patted them both on the head from behind. This creature too was a cartoon character, wearing white gloves and red sneakers, and both of his eyes appeared to be joined together across his face.

"Tag, you're it!" the creature said and ran off faster than Raven could keep up. "Catch me if you can!"

"After him, Luigi!" the short man in red said in an Italian sounding Brooklyn accent, and they both bounded after the rodent. "There's only going to be one winner in the console wars!"

Raven just stood watching all this lunacy happen around her. She'd travelled in the TARDIS for two months, seen a lot of strange creatures, times and customs, but never had she seen such lunacy before.

"Okay, this..." Raven said looking around wide eyed. "... is really, really disturbing."

Raven suspected where she was. The Doctor had described it, but she couldn't believe it.

"The Land of what?" Beast Boy exclaimed when Raven told them where she had ended up. Raven shot him a steely glance and Beast Boy instantly clammed up and shut up.

"It's a place called 'the Land of Fiction.'" Raven said, "The Doctor later described it as a place where the pressure of belief from millions of minds of fictional places or characters cause them to manifest and exist as a mental projection."

"So this Impostor Doctor was someones fictional version of the legend?" Star Fire asked, "But how could she escape into the real world and kidnap the Doctor?"

"I'll come to that." Raven said.

"And what about this Rachel and her friends? How do they fit into this?" Star Fire asked.

"I'll come to that." Raven said smiling at the suspense she was keeping them both in.

"How come Star Fire gets to interrupt, but I can't?" Beast Boy complained.

"You could, but I'll kick you out." Raven mentally chuckled at Beast Boys child like, grumpy face. Silence was the penalty for going into her room and through her stuff, and he only now realised this. At least Beast Boy understood what he did, that Raven didn't like it, he begrudgingly accepted the penalty, and didn't make excuses for his actions. Unlike someone else she'd just described.

"Now, I'll get back to Rachel soon. But for now she was still writing what I did next. Which was go to the castle." Raven sighed, "And so began the biggest headache of my life."

To Be Continued...

Authors notes: Strap yourselves in. This kind of lunacy is my speciality. :D

The Troll thing was an analogy to Internet Trolls. Forget your pride, just ignore them and go around them, they can't really do anything.

Part of the inspiration for the Impostor is the Big Finish audio, the One Doctor, where someone is going around pretending to be the Doctor in order to con people out of valuable minerals. In this case, the motivation is more of an authoritarian nature.

The Impostor being the head of LINDA in some future time is also a subtle jab at some fan run groups I've found which are run quite poorly, and have become quite authoritarian themselves.

I'm watching a lot of Monty Python because I really want to give Raven a headache in this one. :P

Obviously the version of Batman and Superman Raven sees are the 'How It Should Have Ended' versions which I like to think exist as a fiction in the DC universe themselves. :P

I didn't refer to each character by name, because I don't think Raven would be familiar with them anyway. Plus, it'll be more fun for the reader to slowly realise what and who I'm describing.