Authors notes: There is a point to the Rachel Roth parts, I promise. ;)
Also, in case people aren't aware. There is a prologue to this story now, at the very start.
Chapter 39
The Headache of this World.
"Azarath Metrion Zynthos." Raven meditated. Breathe in. Breathe out. "Azarath Metrion Zynthos" Breathe in. Breathe out. "Azarath Metrion Zynthos."
She was rudely awoken out of her meditations as two, blue elf like creatures clambered over her knees and ran away from the Tom cat that was chasing them.
Raven was fast getting irritated. She couldn't find anywhere on this ship to centre herself, it was too crowded; and even when she found a spot to be at peace for just a minute she found the ether in this world was twisted and turbulent. This was a world generated by the minds of people in the real world, as a result the place was a jumbled mass of psychic noise, which made it difficult to concentrate. It was rather like trying to sleep when someone has a TV turned on too high next door.
The room she was in was infested by little blue people that seemed to use the word 'Smurf' in place of real words most of the time. The lower decks were crammed full of people laughing and joking, there was just too much noise down there.
The deck was no good either, it was just a hustle and bustle of activity. It didn't help that one of their deck hands was a very loud mouthed and irritating boy with a mono-brow who wouldn't leave her alone. He thought she was a vampire and he demanded she bite him to make him 'like her.' She refused to even acknowledge his presence. She eventually found out how to get him off her back by telling him where to find the ships supply of gravy powder, that he seemed to like.
Then the next moment Raven had to duck when she sensed this cartoon boy rip up the main mast, literally rip it up, when someone asked him to 'hoist it.' He swung it around with the lookouts still in the crows nest.
"I hoisted it!" The boy announced in a loud voice that made him sound like a village idiot. "First matey, I did good now?"
"ED!" the First mate shouted, "Put that back!" and he did as instructed, slamming it back down. Despite the mast being splintered it went back and stood surprisingly straight strong, must be his cartoon physics.
The first mate was the bug-eyed cartoon character called Apu Nahasapeemapetilon who, despite his calm temperament, could become quite enraged when pushed too far. But he'd always revert to his mild-mannered self.
Distractions, distractions, more distractions! She was surrounded by distractions!
Raven needed to meditate. Meditation allowed her to maintain control of her powers, without meditation her powers could become wild and out of control. It would be like trying to focus on a delicate task when you haven't had sleep for twenty four hours; only in this case a slip up could mean the boat, or some part of it gets blasted apart.
She had tried cotton wool in her ears, but if it wasn't noise, it was sensing these ghostly creatures around her. They were always moving, never still. Or it was her skin as she sensed as people moved around or climbed over her. Or the smell, and frankly some of them did smell! And now the turbulent ether of this world made it difficult to focus. She was being driven insane by all this!
Raven had asked the Doctor if she could just release the TARDIS and go back inside it. But the Doctor had told her to keep a hold of the TARDIS in her mind for now, because it was safer there.
The demon girl couldn't understand why the Doctor wanted to stay. He hadn't explained yet. Maybe he fears the Impostor might try to replace him, and trap him as a jig-saw, again. Strangely he didn't seem too phased by that.
Great, now her mind was wandering too!
Now in the captains command deck, sitting crossed legged on the floor, Raven just gave up on meditation and fell backwards to the floor in frustration, stretching her legs out and sighing deeply with her hands on her head, running her fingers through her hair.
When she opened her eyes she saw the Doctor standing over her. She just gave him an irritated look.
"Having fun?" The Doctor asked.
"Kill me!" Raven said exasperated.
"Still got your sunny disposition, I see." The Doctor quipped. God, she hated him when he was like this. He had an answer for everything.
He held up what looked like a swan, made out of paper.
"Apu back there is very good at Origami. I never knew." The Doctor was so collected and focused despite the lunacy happening around him.
"How do you do it, Doctor?" Raven asked.
"Well," the Doctor said, motioning an action with his hands over the paper swan, "You take a piece of paper, and you fold it like this..."
"Oh, shut up!" Raven sighed. The Doctor did so and waited for Raven to speak as she just stared up at the ceiling. "I mean how can you remain focused when there is so much noise around you? I can't meditate when there are so many distractions around me. But you cut through these distractions as easily as fog, while I drowned in them. How do you do it?!"
The Doctor looked like he was thinking, drumming his fingers on the side of his face. Then he pocketed the paper bird, and swung himself down to lay on the floor next to Raven and they both stared up into the ceiling. The sound of some kind of musical jig was floating down from the deck above.
"The stillness of the area around you shouldn't matter." The Doctor said as he went into teacher mode. "It's the stillness within yourself you need to focus on."
"But it's so difficult here." Raven said.
"Why?" The Doctor asked. Raven had to think for a second, she didn't know.
"I... It's just so different here. Scratch that, its insane here." She closed her eyes. "I feel like I'm stuck in a storm with no centre, because there is even a storm within that."
"Really, what's causing this storm?" The Doctor asked.
"I don't know." Raven said, "It's this place. Just the insanity of it all. It's just a big headache!" She sighed. "It's like nothing is still. It's always moving, and its difficult to focus."
The Doctor crossed his straight legs and rested his arms across his torso.
"Would you believe I am technically meditating as we speak? That I'm always meditating, even when on the move." The Doctor said, "And it has nothing to do with my Time Lord biology."
"No, I wouldn't believe it." Raven answered.
"Sometimes in life, Rae-Rae, you won't be able to find a centre, a calm in the storm because the storm is everywhere, happening at once. The only thing you can do is go with the flow of the wind, match the movement of the madness and find the moving centre there."
He is talking absolute shite. Raven decided.
"On this ship for example, when you came aboard I bet you had trouble finding your legs as the ship swayed in the sea. But now you can get up, walk around and not feel the slight sway of the boat. In that respect, you are 'centred'."
"So the trouble is just finding a way to go with the flow instead of finding a place where the flow stops." Raven summarised. "How?" The Doctor didn't seem to have an answer for that.
"I guess, the same way you learnt how to balance on the ship." The Doctor said. "You've got to get used to it."
Raven just groaned, she didn't think she could ever get used to it. To Raven it felt like he was asking a baby to walk; no, he was asking a baby to tap dance. Raven just felt so out of her depth here.
"I don't know if I can do it." Raven admitted. "I need to meditate to control my powers. What happens when I can't meditate here?"
"Raven, you have to leave the TARDIS where it is." The Doctor said firmly, knowing where this conversation was heading. Raven could just imagine that tall blue box in her own mind-scape, so close, yet out of reach.
"Great, the only place I can find peace, quiet, and tranquillity is rattling around inside my head." Raven said.
"Rae-Rae, you have no idea how right that statement is." The Doctor said mysteriously.
"Whatever." Raven sighed.
She just laid there for a second, feeling the gentle sway of the boat, and the gentle creak of the wood the sway caused, even the dancing jig and all the other things she was only becoming aware of again now. She hadn't noticed any of this until the conversation between them had ended, she had tuned it out to focus on the conversation. Maybe if she can tune out all this to focus on a conversation, she can tune out everything else to focus on her meditations. But it wasn't going to be easy.
Raven took a deep breath and slowly let it out in a sigh. She waited a few seconds before saying to the Doctor, still laying on the floor next to her.
"You know your coat is going to get dirty." Without missing a beat the Doctor replied.
"So will your cloak." She felt her frown straighten, not smile, just straighten.
"Attention please." Cried Doctor McCoy waving his arms for everyone to quieten down and pay attention to him. "I know we have thirty minutes of lesson time left, but I need to introduce a new student to your form who has just arrived. I'm sure she's sorry for being late..."
"May I introduce myself, Doctor McCoy?" new girl cut him across.
Rachel looked away from her laptop to the girl standing next to Doctor McCoy. She was a short, plump woman with short, cornflower hair and a toad like face. She also had quite a smug look about her that almost looked like it was permanently fixed to her face.
"Thank you for your attention. I am Dolores. My family has just moved from the Inner city. I am nice, lovely, I like blue, and I hate prejudice and oppression."
"Who introduces themselves like that?" Garfield whispered.
"A creep wanting to hide themselves." Rachel said.
Despite their whispers Dolores's face snapped over to them and looked directly at Rachel, Garfield, Victor and the others. She glanced away hoping to hide it.
Rachel decided she instantly did not like this person, alarm bells were ringing in her head at the sight of her.
"I do hope we can all be friends, and that none here are nasty or prejudice." Dolores said and moved to take a seat.
Everyone scrunched their seats up instantly to refuse the girl anywhere to sit. Again she glanced at Rachel as if this was her doing, somehow.
"Ah now, I hope you will all make her feel as welcome as she deserves to be. Now I ask you all to get back to your writings, if you please." Doctor McCoy said.
Rachel went back to her laptop and wrote a little more. But she suddenly got the sense of heavy breathing behind her, and she turned to see Dolores's toad like head next to her. The sight of it startled Rachel.
"Do you mind?" Rachel asked.
"Sorry. I was just looking at what you're writing." Dolores said with a look Rachel did not like.
Quickly tapping 'save' Rachel shut the laptop.
"Oh, but I was reading that." Dolores said.
"You can read it when it goes up on the internet, OW!" Garfield had started saying in Rachel's defence, and squealed when Rachel stamped him on the foot.
"Oh, you write on the internet?!" Dolores said, a smile spreading on her face that made her look like a hungry toad that had spotted a fly. "What do you write about?" and she sat down on a chair near Rachel.
"Just stuff." Rachel decided it wouldn't do any harm, Dolores might just be socially awkward, rather than sadistic. "Umm... mostly fantasy or science fantasy."
"Do you have many followers?" Rachel wanted to tell her to 'mind her own business' but held herself back in case this girl had something wrong with her which meant she couldn't control herself. But Rachel's tolerance was short. "I have ideas for stories to tell." Dolores said.
"I don't take requests." Rachel said bluntly, and Dolores didn't so much as look upset as she did offended Rachel would refuse her.
"But they are good ideas, and in this climate we need stories to spread messages of goodness and kindness." Dolores said, "You don't want people to think you're not for goodness, do you?"
Stella spotted the girl and was up in an instant. "Oh, I do welcome you to our school. Miss Dolores!" Stella said in a very sweet and welcoming voice. She went to hug Dolores in greeting, like she usually does, as per the custom in her country.
"Don't touch me!" she screeched before Stella's arms could close around her in greeting. "I don't like to be touched by strange people." and she looked at Stella with a disgusted look in her eye. "Especially not you."
Slowly Stella slinked away, "I am sorry if I caused offence." She said in a low voice, head held low.
"Apology accepted, now go away, please." Dolores's eyes were like lasers that looked at Stella with an intense dislike, the look in her eyes told Rachel this girl delighted in Stella's uncomfortableness. Dolores then turned back to Rachel when Stella sat down. "So, what to hear my ideas?"
"No." Rachel said bluntly, turning her body to face away from this large girl.
"You don't need to be scared of me." Dolores said, "I'm nice. I like inclusivity, diversity. I hate prejudice."
"And I hate people who talk to my friends like they're garbage." Rachel shot back.
"I don't like to be touched." Dolores said. "I accepted her apology. Is that a crime?"
"Then why did it sound more like an insult?" Rachel asked, allowing a little venom to enter her voice, again she did not turn to look at her.
"I've been bullied my whole life." Dolores' smirk did not lessen. Rachel got the feeling this was someone who caused the bullying, then cried 'bully' when her victims fought back.
"That doesn't entitle you to be a complete and total bitch." Rachel spat the last word.
"OHHHH!" Victor and Garfield cheered and high-fived each other before holding out their hands for Rachel to do the same. Which she reluctantly did. Stella looked at her approvingly, and Rachel gave her a sideways smile. Dolores looked confused and shell shocked, like she didn't understand why she was getting this reception.
"All I wanted was to suggest stories, and instead I'm getting attacked!" Dolores said looking at Doctor McCoy. "Sir, sir!" she cried. "They're bullying me!"
"Well, don't sit near them anymore." Doctor McCoy said. "You don't have to sit near them."
"Aren't you going to give them detention?" Dolores demanded, almost stamping her foot. She sounded like she was used to getting what she wanted. "Bullying should not be tolerated!"
"Agreed." Doctor McCoy said and his face smirked himself. "So apologise to Stella first." This looked like it upset Dolores.
"She wanted to hug me, I don't want to be hugged!" Dolores screeched.
"That's not what you're apologising for; and you know it."
Dolores and the teacher seemed to be having a stare off contest that felt like it went on for hours until Dolores broke it.
"I don't like being hugged!" She insisted again, as if that was the problem.
"My dear, if you're going to be that blunt with people, don't be surprised when they or their friends are blunt right back at you." Doctor McCoy said.
"Don't call me 'dear', I am Dolores!" she insisted.
"And you will also be going to detention if you don't sit down." the Teacher said firmly, having enough of her nonsense.
Dolores looked back, and shot Rachel a nasty look. With Dolores eclipsing her view of the Teacher Rachel stuck her tongue out at Dolores. The large woman looked shaken that Rachel had the ability to fight back. The Goth girl felt the floor shake as she stamped away to go sit down in a chair in the opposite side of the class room.
"Thank you." Doctor McCoy said, "Now, you all still have twenty Five minutes left before the lesson is over. But before you continue on I would like to ask a question."
Doctor McCoy turned and wrote on the white board the word 'Writings'. He then wrote the word 'Event' both to the right and left. Then drew a line underneath pointing right which said 'Time' under all three words.
"Now, who wrote about an event? An actual event in their lives?" A smattering of hands went up. "Okay, who wrote something fictitious?" More hands, including Rachel's went up. "Excellent. Now..."
Doctor McCoy went to the white board again. "Now think, which came first?" He asked, "If you wrote about an event in the past, that is considered 'history', are we agreed?" Plenty nodded their heads. "Ah, but if the event is in the future, or if the 'writings' come first, what is that?"
Some answers came up from the class. "A prediction?", "A prophecy?", "Hypothesis?"
"All true, but it's also... 'fiction'. When the writing comes first it is considered fiction. What happens if the event happens? Does that make the writings fact?"
People nodded and said 'yes'.
"No!" Doctor McCoy shook his head, "What the writing describes may be considered factual and historical 'now', but the original writing itself is still 'fiction' purely because it was written 'before' the event. If the event happens, then we write about it. Then it is history." He then smiled and winked. "Something to keep in mind."
"That... was weird." Victor said.
"Did anyone understand that?" Garfield shrugged. Stella tried to explain since she apparently understood it.
"I think he's saying if you write about the future, and the future happens as described. It doesn't mean you're writing about a 'future event' that was going to happen, because the future event is not certain to happen." Garfield looked more confused.
Rachel didn't want to sit hear watching Stella teach Garfield the basics of literacy or philosophy, she wanted to get back to writing her story.
After meeting this Dolores woman, Rachel decided she had the perfect antagonist to her story. What if the Land of Fiction was being controlled by someone who wanted to use it because they wanted to tell only the stories they wanted, and hated that the fictions of the Land of Fiction were rebelling against her. Obviously there must be some fictions on the bad guys side or else everything would be too easy.
Rachel also decided to take inspiration from 1984, where the systems like Big Brother were painted as a necessary, angelic tools to enforce freedom, when in reality they were twisted weapons against the people designed to eliminate privacy and free speech.
Smirking and thinking this was the best revenge against Dolores, Rachel began to write again.
We're having tea... with Captain Hook and Alice from Wonderland? Raven thought. I have officially lost my mind.
Raven, the Doctor, Captain Hook and Alice now sat around a table in the captains quarters. A pot of tea on his desk and four cups and saucers around them, with cakes and muffins. The Doctor taking his cup and putting two sugar cubes in it.
Raven just held hers in her hands on her lap as the explanations for what the heck was going on here were given. She decided against taking part in this conversation, she didn't feel her in put was needed. She wasn't the Doctors 'companion' after all, just his body guard, his 'muscle'.
"I must apologise for the rather rum way you were treated." Captain Hook apologised, "Turning you into a jigsaw, bad form, bad form! I like to fight my enemies face to face."
Captain Hooks regal and gentlemanly composure cracked a little as the Doctor took out his silver pocket watch to wind it up. The Captain looked at it like it was the most offensive item he'd ever seen.
Raven remembered, he was a character who feared clocks, especially the one in the gut of the alligator that took his hand; because it represented the passage of time and ultimately his death if the alligator ever caught him.
Despite his dislike of clocks, Captain Hook held his nerve as the Doctor pocketed the watch again, apparently ignorant of the offence he'd caused the Captain.
"It was a curious feeling, being turned into a Jig-saw." the Doctor said, "Imagine having your eyes, ears and nose all pressed up together in one place; and then have all your atoms shuffled around as your box is moved."
Was the Doctor fully aware while he was in pieces?! A twinge of anger twisted in Ravens head as she imagined what being a jig-saw would feel like. If I find out who did that to him, I'll make them pay! She swore.
"But some pieces must've gotten lost down the back of the settee, because I can't work out what's gone wrong here." The Doctor admitted. "You fictions are at war with each other?"
"It's all because of that dreadful woman we have as Mistress now!" Alice piped up.
"This place always seems to have problems." The Doctor sighed, "First your old Master was dying and you needed a replacement; and your Master Brain tried to force me into the role, I might add. Then the place was becoming over crowded so you tried to invade the real world; then Cybermen invaded. Though admittedly, that was Zoe's fault, not yours; Then you allowed Mortimus to install a mentally unstable boy as Master to construct a trap for me." The Doctor leaned forward onto the Captains desk. "Need I go on? Have we got all night, I'll list off the lot."
"Doctor, I'm not in charge." Captain Hook said waving his hook around forgetting it was pointy and dangerous.
The Doctor raised his index finger and pushed the hook onto the desk. "Mind not waving that around. It might be fictional, but it's still dangerous."
Captain Hook withdrew his arm towards his own end of the table.
"Sometimes I think the Land of Fiction should've been left deactivated. If it wasn't such a useful sink for psychic and mental energy." The Doctor said.
That's rather harsh for the Doctor to say. It's like someone saying the Universe should be switched off. Raven wanted to say something, but felt better of it. She was rather surprised the Doctor would say something like that, but decided to wait to hear more of what the Doctor thought.
"I'm also surprised I'm taking tea with the infamous Captain Hook. A villain, a delightful villain, but a villain." the Doctor said, "You're also working with your sworn enemies, the Lost Boys."
"A common enemy can make allies of us all." Captain Hook said. "It's all beside the point, sir. The Mistress doesn't like other 'Creators' in the Land of Fiction, she sees them as a danger to her power. Therefore you are a threat to her."
"Therefore we're automatically your allies?" The Doctor questioned.
"We like to think so." the pirate said.
Some of Captain Hooks pronunciations were strange, in fact it was the same with Alice and everyone she met here. As if there were some words they just couldn't speak properly so they had to mix sounds from other words to form them. It was an almost seamless process, but if you listened you could hear a small auditory brick wall where the sound switches when it shouldn't. Weird.
"So what's so bad about this Mistress of yours, apart from the fact she dislikes visitors?" The Doctor joked.
"She kills us, Doctor. Over and over again." Captain Hook said.
"How can you kill a fictional character?" Raven asked, she had been so taken by surprise by Hooks statement she broke her silence.
The Captain stood to speak and he looked angry.
"Now, now, Captain. Remember your blood pressure." Alice said politely as she placed her tea down after taking a sip from it. She then poured the captain a fresh cup. "We are all on edge, so calm down."
"Yes, yes. Quite right, Miss Alice." and Captain Hook settled down. "Bad form, bad form. My apologies."
"We should explain ourselves better." Alice dabbed her mouth with a cloth before speaking. "We needed a new ruler for the Land of Fiction. The Master Brain that now helps generate this world scanned the universe outside for a creative mind suitable enough to take up the duties of the Land of Fiction. It thought it found the perfect candidate. Someone just so imaginative, or appeared to be. She was the head of a production company where a great many works of fiction were forged, and were attributed to her name. So the Master Brain reached out and brought her here. She was scared at first but settled into her role as Mistress of the Land of Fiction."
"As you understand, Doctor." Captain Hook spoke. "The Mistress of the Land of Fiction needs to be someone of high imagination, a story teller and person who understands great characters. Preferably one who can generate fictions herself."
"I take it she lied on her CV?" The Doctor asked.
"Oh, she was imaginative alright, Doctor." Alice said, "Just not as imaginative as she liked to think. We believe most of the fictions under her credit were creations of someone else that she got all the praise for despite not creating any of it."
"Welcome to the work place hierarchy." The Doctor joked.
"She began generating fictions that were very samey, very flat and dull." Captain Hook said, using his hook to skewer a muffin. "Nothing that really caught the imagination, nor taxed the mind to difficult concepts. All her bad guys all believed the same and thought the same nasty things; all her good guys believed and thought the same way. There was no 'character' to the characters." And he took a bite of the muffin.
"Even Captain Hook isn't so evil at his heart." Alice said, "He is a bad guy obviously. But as you can see he isn't just evil for evils sake."
"I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted, my dear." Captain Hook said, "I still have to be the antagonist to Peter Pan after all, or there is no story."
"I know captain, I know." Alice said with a look on her face which said she'd heard this a thousand times over.
"The Mistresses stories were also the same as ours in a lot of ways." Alice said. "The only major difference being that she'd swap out a few things here and there. Shuffled physical character traits, stripped them of character and replaced them with a character she personally found appealing."
"But isn't that how things like Star Wars were made? The Magnificent Seven? Dragon Ball Z?" The Doctor asked. "Changing up older stories? Insert new characters, themes and ideas into them, adapt them?"
"Oh, we have no problem with that, good sir." Captain Hook said cleaning his hook off with a handkerchief. "Shuffling fiction around is still fiction, and even when done badly fiction is still fiction after all. Its what happened next that changed everything."
"Our presence here is only generated by what I believe is called 'Public Interest'." Alice said, "We exist only because the readers of your world unconsciously imagine and demand that we exist on some level." Alice took a sip of her tea. "Any fiction that doesn't generate enough 'buzz', as I believe you call it, fades into obscurity."
"Well, of course, you are just beings held together by collective mental energy after all." The Doctor summed up.
"Quite." Alice said, "But the Mistress got a little annoyed when she found out her own fictions didn't last long. They fade and vanished because only she kept them alive."
"Yes," Captain Hook coughed into his handkerchief, "she was even disappointed that some characters that she thought were big in the real world, in reality had such a niche interest that they even fail to manifest at all." Captain Hook shook his head. "She thought that was a crime. That what she was interested in was not enjoyed, nor shared by the universe at large. That's when she decided to replace us."
"Replace Captain Hook, replace Alice?" The Doctor asked indignant.
"Yes, we apparently didn't fit what she wanted." Alice said, "Rather than invent her own stories and creations, her own plots, she instead created fictional versions of us."
"Fan characters?" The Doctor suggested.
"If you like." Alice said, "She'd alter a few traits, characters and the like and expected them to gain traction."
"Piggy backing off the success of something that already exists." The Doctor sighed. "But still, that's the essence of creativity surely, swapping things around. That's where things like pantomime come from."
"No, no, no. We have no problem with that either!" Captain Hook said, energetically waving his hook around again. Raven was going to pull that thing off him if it came any closer to her. "Fiction is fiction. We personally don't care if she's doing it to fulfil some fantasy of her own. But what the Mistress got annoyed about is that those creations eventually faded and vanished too. Nothing she creates stays here. No, what she did next, that is the monstrous thing to us."
"She began killing us." Alice said, "She thought the only reason her own 'creations' didn't do well is because people were comparing them to the originals and using them as a benchmark for her own writings."
"So she began rounding us up." Captain Hook said indignant, "and destroying us."
"But surely the psychic pressure of the real world would just bring you back into existence." The Doctor asked.
"Yes, but she didn't know that." Alice said. "We had some of the wise-men of fiction talk to her. Gandalf, Dumbledore, Yoda, Sherlock Holmes, even Mr. Miyagi, and they tried to explain, and offered to help her creativity grow."
"I take it she didn't react well." The Doctor asked.
"She thought it insulting that the fictions knew how to write a better story than she did." Alice said.
"She thought she was being attacked by them." Captain Hook said. "Pah, damn cheek of the woman!"
"Some people can't take criticism." The Doctor shrugged. "I guess when you think you're a creative genius, to be told otherwise both by the fictions she governs, and even the dimension shes in control of, its kind of a sharp sting to her ego."
"She decided 'we' were the problem, 'we' were the reason her creations didn't last." Captain Hook stood. Though Raven had trouble sensing his emotions she could tell by the look on him he was getting worked up. "She decided 'we' were somehow conspiring against her and her creations, plotting to replace her. She became paranoid and declared war on any fictions who dared question what she was doing. Any who did were killed off, or contained, and replaced." Captain Hook drew his sword, "We declared war on her empire and kicked off a revolution in this Land of Fiction!"
"Settle down now, captain." Alice said calmly.
"Yes, Miss Alice." He said and the hot headed pirate instantly calmed down and seated himself, resting his head in his one hand. "Oh, I just want my own enemy back!" and Alice patted him on the back as he sobbed.
"She took Peter Pan, Wendy and the children, and replaced them." Alice explained. "But replaced them with versions that altered the very character dynamic of Peter Pan and Captain Hook."
"I don't just want any old character called Peter, I want MY Peter, MY Wendy, I want my fellow characters back!" Hook said, slamming his fist into the table like a mad child. That was in character for him at least. "The story isn't worth telling with what she replaced them with!"
Weirdly, Raven found herself empathising with Captain Hook a little. After all, Raven had rejected the replacement 'Doctor,' she guessed in the same way Hook had rejected the replacement Peter Pan. This started to make Raven wonder what Hooks motivations in the original story actually where. She assumed he was bad, just because. But this suggested there was a deeper meaning to their surface level battles.
"I guess even the Lost Boys and Tinkerbell rejected the new Peter Pan if they're willing to throw their lot in with Captain Hook." The Doctor laughed. "But why not just get rid of the Mistress? Send her back and pick out someone else?"
"That's what we're trying to do. But not everyone in the Land of Fiction agrees." Alice said. "She's mostly going after fictions of a Human, Selerien, Tamaranian, Dimeninian, creation. Why those creations we don't know. But the rest she's, so far, leaving alone; and because she's not attacking them they feel no reason to go after her."
After listening to this Raven wanted to speak. Despite her voice being small and raspy it had enough of a point to it to cut through them.
"Can't you just wait for her to die?" she asked, "People are limited, but fictions, good fictions are timeless. They go on forever."
"Raven has a point." The Doctor said, "You'll out live her, surely and things will go back to normal. Even fictional cures like the fountain of youth won't save her, incompatible physics. She will die, her fictions will die with her and you can find another mistress or master."
"You might have more of a steak in this than you think." Captain Hook said. "I take it you met the counterpart 'Doctor'?"
"Raven has made me aware of her, yes. The 'Impostor' I believe you called her, Rae-Rae?" The Doctor said, "I'm flattered I've inspired other species to follow in my footsteps and want to dream themselves up as me. Though I feel that 'creation' kind of misses the point of what I'm actually about."
"Did you never think how this 'Impostor' managed to trade places with you?" Captain Hook said pointedly.
"Ah, I was wondering when we'd come to that." The Doctor said, taking more of an interest.
"Turns out the Mistress was under the delusion that if she altered fictions here, it'll alter fiction in the real world." Alice said nearly laughing.
"Well, of course that's not the case." The Doctor said, "That's like messing with a shadow expecting it to have an affect on the caster."
I'm sure I can figure out a way to do that. Raven thought darkly.
"She didn't realise that; and she wasn't happy when it was explained to her." Alice sighed, "We think she took the position of Mistress because she thought she could actively re-write fictions, expecting the fiction in the real world to change.
"When she found out she couldn't affect the real world directly, she eventually discovered how she was transported here and began using it herself." Alice said, "She'd kidnap people from your world and replace them with a fictional version of them of her own creation. If she couldn't alter people through their consumption of fiction, she'd alter them by replacing them."
"Ah, so she wants to manipulate the universe at large?" The Doctor said, "By replacing influential people with brainwashed versions of fiction."
Raven considered this. The Impostor, when assuming the role of the Doctor, did say she wanted to alter the outcome of some political vote on some planet somewhere. Clearly something had gone badly wrong, because who the Mistress had replaced the Doctor with was clearly unsuitable to even be the Doctor. Not because of any physical traits as the Impostor had kept insisting the issue was. But because her personality, her lack of understanding, her arrogance, her behaviour just made her very undoctor like.
Something about the Impostor being fictional though just didn't gel in Ravens mind. Hadn't she also admitted she was leader of this LINDA group, a group of Doctor fans? Then there was the biology, if the Impostor was supposed to be a Time Lord why didn't the fiction have Time Lord traits? And above all, Raven doubted the Impostor would admit to not being the Doctor anymore than Captain Hook would admit to not being the real Captain Hook.
There was clearly something more to the Impostor than just being a fiction.
"Any idea who she's replaced in the real world so far?" The Doctor asked. "There are quite a few one dimensional cartoon character cut outs I suspect are her handy work."
"We can't say." Alice said, "But we know she likes to imprison them in different ways. Some she turns into jig-saws, others games. She alters their physical existence and turns them into other objects."
"Hmm... How unoriginal, that's usually the Toy Makers gig." The Doctor muttered to himself.
Toy Maker?
Don't ask, I have too much of a headache already.
Raven could see the look on the Doctors face, and she knew he was going to help defeat this Mistress to save the Universe, and the Land of Fiction; and Raven got the sense she was going to be pressured into helping.
This had better count for a years worth of good deeds.
To Be Continued...
Authors notes: The last section is kind of a jab at Hollywood for their need to constantly reboot franchises, most with poor half-assed writing and some with superficial, gimmicky changes; and the way they act when the reboots are poorly received.
Welcome to the new character Dolores. I'm going to do my best to make you guys really hate this character for what she's going to do to Rachel and her friends.
Dolores is a mixture of inspirations. First is the woman from my university course again (She introduced herself to the class in a similar way too. Seriously, she did and we could tell what kind of person she was instantly.) The next was a bully I knew at school who'd pretend to be nicey-nicey but in reality delighted in manipulating people and teachers to get their intended victims to be seen as the bully and punished for stuff they didn't do, in a very sadistic version of crying wolf. (I am happy to report, the person eventually got found out in the end, and no teacher took her seriously again. Which was very unfortunate for her. :P) The name Dolores also comes from Dolores Umbridge of Harry Potter, who also acted as a little inspiration in the way she struts around the place with authority and smugness, expecting to always be taken seriously.
I'm concerned the last part where Hook, Alice and the Doctor are discussing the motivations of the Mistress of the Land of Fiction might drag on a little too much as its technically a big info dump. I've tried to make it as entertaining as possible but if any think it drags on a tad, let me know and I'll look into altering it.
I've tried to write Alice and Captain Hook as a mixture of all different versions of themselves rather than sticking to just the Classic, or Disney versions of them.