Chapter 53

Not so different, perhaps?

Raven couldn't focus fast enough to catch the giant jaws of the Dinosaur, and Barriss seemed equally useless with her weaker powers.

But something suddenly sprung up across from the Dinosaur and grabbed it around the neck.

Alice had eaten her biscuits again.

Wrestling with the Dinosaur she forced it to the ground on its side like it was a puppy dog and held it down as it struggled to break free.

Standing up she grabbed the Dinosaur by its hind legs and held its snapping jaws away from her. Comically she proceeded to smack the Dinosaurs hind end with the flat of her hand like she was disciplining a puppy.

When Alice gently put the Dinosaur down it was still aggressive, but it was a warily aggressive, a type of 'don't come near me' aggressive, as it backed away into the trees.

The two hooded girls got to their feet and Barriss waved at Alice a 'thanks'

Raven didn't wave her thanks, not because she didn't appreciate being saved, but because she was scanning the trees for the Imposter.

Raven spotted her purple pointy ears immediately, and Raven was going to cast a spell to trap her when Alice suddenly shouted.

"There she is! Behind that bush!"

Damn it, Alice!

The Imposter bounded out again as Alice reached down for her, but before she could grab the large woman she'd activated her teleporter and passed through another portal.

Raven again caught the shimmering gateway with her powers and once Alice drank her potion and shrank back down all three passed through the portal, Raven being last through.

Again the scene had shifted.

They were in a narrow, white corridor with plenty of doors either side. But the Imposter did not attempt to enter any of them. Personal items were scattered everywhere, things people had dropped in a clear panic.

As the three girls chased the Imposter down the corridor Raven noticed the entire length of it appeared to be tilted downward as if it had been built as a slope. The lights went out, but only briefly. They came back on, and there was the unmistakable sound of protesting metal under a lot of stress.

Bursting through a door the Imposter and the three girls were met with a stream of fast-moving water which washed over their feet and was becoming deeper and deeper.

Raven had a quick flashback to a similar setup she'd sensed inside Kasey's mind-scape, which represented his rising anxiety and depression. Here though there was a big difference. The water was ice cold!

The Imposter pushed past the water and looked back at a grating opposite a staircase briefly before rushing up the stairs.

As the trio of girls arrived they found the reason the Imposter stopped.

The grating wasn't a grating, it was a black, iron gate, which led to a lower floor. It was where the water was coming up from with quite a force, and it was quickly rising higher and higher, and there were two people trapped behind it calling for help.

"Down there, please. The key's, please! They're down there! Help us, please!" They called, pointing just in front of the gate on Raven's side.

Alice didn't stop and ran right up after the Imposter.

Barriss and Raven froze. Raven wanted to get out of this water, her legs were freezing! But Barriss drew her laser sword and attempted to activate it. But it wasn't working. She tipped it up and water fell from its innards. Instead, Barriss leapt into the water and began fishing for the key.

Quickly focusing, Raven called Barriss back away from the gate.

"We have to help them!" Barriss protested.

Raven held up her hand at the gate, "Mind your fingers." and with a swipe of her hand, the gate was crushed to one side as easily as a tin can, freeing the couple.

They burst from the gate and before they could be thanked Raven and Barriss disappeared up the stairs. They could hear the couple following them up the winding stairs, so they were safe at least.

"What fiction is this?!" Raven asked Barriss.

"I don't know. I'm just part of this world, I'm not well-read in it."

The two magic monks caught up with Alice on the deck of what they now knew was a ship. It was pitch dark, the deck was covered in people, and the ship was alarmingly tilted forwards and a little to the left.

Almost everyone was wearing tuxedo-like attire, but the Imposters pointy ears and green hair made her stand out. Instantly they were on her heels, pushing past the crowd of people. In the air, Raven could hear a string band playing music from the other side of the ship.

The crowd thinned and they saw the Imposter run towards the lifeboat that was just being lowered.

Now Raven understood, this ship was sinking!

The large Imposter Doctor stopped at a lifeboat, and despite there being plenty of room for her she forcibly dragged a middle-aged man from the boat and onto the deck. Where she proceeded to thump him in the face a couple of times.

The crew lowering the lifeboat were too stunned at the sight to do anything at first. That was until the crewmember giving commands drew a revolver.

She then leapt into the lifeboat and the crew lowering the boat lost their grip. The boat sharply impacted the water and nearly rolled over onto its side putting the rest of the passengers in danger. But it levelled out.

The three girls made it to the edge of the deck just too late as the lifeboat began to float away.

The middle-aged man on the floor got to his feet nursing a bloody nose.

"Are you alright, Mister Ismay, sir?" asked one of the crew members.

"Yes, yes. Quite alright, quite alright." He sounded like a defeated, broken man as he looked at the floating lifeboat, and then down at the waterline, and up at one of the ships massive four funnels. "Perhaps it is better if I take my chances with all the other men."

Wrapping himself up in his coat he slowly, without purpose, walked aft towards the crowd.

"But sir, there are still the collapsible boats! Sir! Sir!" But the man didn't reply, he looked like he was well aware he was walking to his doom.

Raven was aware this was happening, but her attention was more focused on the Imposter. She was fiddling with that device of hers. Pointing it down and trying to activate it. She rubbed the side and shook it.

Was it broken? Or perhaps it needed to recharge between uses?

"If you young ladies would like to stay back." The crew said, ushering them back and giving all three a curious look because of their attire. "We shall free the collapsible boat and have you away in no time."

Raven had no intention of waiting. Waving her hands a large black disk appeared at their feet and Raven leapt up on top. Alice and Barriss following her lead. The disk sped forwards after the Imposter. Her three eyes grew in panic at their approach and she frantically smacked the device trying to get it to work.

Suddenly the Imposter appeared to fall into the hull of the boat, much to the shock of the people around her. Her portal gun had gone off.

Raven's disk carried the three two the portal and they jumped off and into the boat so Raven could focus her powers on keeping the portal open. Alice and Barriss jumped through.

A crash caught Raven's attention and she looked back briefly to see the massive ship lurch forwards. It was sinking rapidly now and the forward most funnel had collapsed. The people on board were screaming.

Raven was momentarily transfixed by the sight, but mostly the screams. There didn't appear to be any lifeboats left and the deck was still swamped with people. All those screams. Screams of people now certain they were going to die. Screams like the ones she'd seen in her future. The ones she'd cause.

Raven shook her head, refocused, and dived into the portal after Alice and Barriss.

When Raven next emerged it was to the sight of three massive creatures, technically four. Three were trolls, as tall as a house and sitting around a campfire in a forest. One had the Imposter in its hands dangling from her leg. The fourth giant creature was Alice, trying to wrestle one of the trolls. Barriss, with the loss of her laser sword, was attempting to toss boulders and dead trees at the other troll with her powers.

"OW!" said a new voice as Raven took a step forward. She was surrounded by about a dozen very hairy, very short men, all were tied up and lying on the floor. Dwarves?!

Raven knew this fiction, she'd read it before, and she knew what happened next. The sky was becoming quite light indicating sunrise.

Any minute a wizard would appear and break a boulder allowing the morning sunlight to shine on the trolls and turn them to stone. But Raven was impatient.

She focused her powers on the boulder, it was shrouded in darkness but breaking it appeared to be a problem. This was so easy when she was angry.

Angry?! Get angry!

Raven thought of all the humiliation, trauma and bullying she'd received at the Temple in Azarath. The misery of being judged. The frustration that they wouldn't let her be anything else but a monster. The fact that the Mistress and the Imposter were selfishly trying to take away her only friend in the universe and replace him with that poor excuse of a creature!

It just made her so angry!

So angry that not only did she split the rock. She shattered it to dust.

Sunlight poured into the clearing, to the horror of the trolls as one by one, like a spreading scab, their entire bodies turned to stone. Frozen forever in a single pose of desperation.

A shiver went up Raven's spine as she watched it, and it made the anger drain away.

Where the boulder had been standing there now stood a tall, long-bearded, dishevelled and greatly bemused wizard.

The Imposter was trapped in the stone trolls hand, and she still fiddled with the controls on her portal gun. Before Raven could call it to her the gun went off and the Imposter fell from the trolls grasp and down into another fiction.

Again, Raven held the portal open.

Alice shrank back down to size and together with Barriss and Raven, they followed the Imposter.

What next began was a desperate chase through several fictions Raven had no interest nor desire to comprehend.

An African setting with animals of all species gathered around a mass of rocks, with a monkey holding aloft a lion cub.

A city setting, where a large, muscley, bulky, and very angry, green man fought another man in a similarly large, bulky, red suit of mechanical armour.

"That Witch is messing with your head!" The man in the suit said. "You are Bruce Banner!"

The green man roared with rage.

"Okay, got it, don't mention puny Banner." The man in the suit said coolly.

Next setting was cartoony and an old man with wild hair wearing a lab-coat with a small boy in a yellow shirt watched bemused as a big, purple alien woman appeared through one portal and passed into another. Followed by three other girls.

"Rick, wha... what just happened?!"

"Geez Morty, do I have to explain everything to you?"

"But.. but I..."

"Honestly Morty, it's so simple, I don't want to insult your intelligence by having to spell it out for you."

The next fiction was in a dark looking throne room, and two people fought with laser swords similar to Barriss's, except they were green and red. Both were dressed in black, but the one with the red sword was quite tall and wearing armour.

The two were about to strike at each other when the Imposter, followed by Barriss, Alice and Raven flew between them. The two warriors broke off briefly to watch the sight. The two looked back at each other as a moment of 'What the hell?' passed between them, and they began fighting again.

"Isn't that your fiction?" Alice asked Barriss.

"Yes, much later in the cannon than my place." Barriss huffed, "Typical, Anakin falls to the dark side and people love what he becomes!"

Again they passed through another portal and into the next fiction.

Two weirdly animated cartoon characters were fighting each other. Both with big spikey hair. One short with a tail, the other tall wearing an orange karate suit.

Raven didn't mentally process what was happening, she remained focused on the Imposter. How could someone so big be so quick?!

The next fiction the Imposter was running with a bunch of teens and a large dog, running away from some creepy monster creature, of which the female trio ran with, in pursuit of their quarry.

Finally, the Imposter slipped up.

They emerged into the grimy deck of some badly looked after vessel. They flew down some narrow stairs and emerged into a room with a table and chairs. Around the table sat one robot with a funny, angular head; and three men, one with large incisors who was sharply dressed, one with an H on his forehead, and a round-faced man in badly stained overalls.

"What the Smeg is going on?!" The round-faced man exclaimed as the Imposter finally ran out of places to run. This place was a very small space vessel. She'd wandered into the small cockpit and now there was no place to go.

Before the Imposter could activate her portal gun again it was finally snatched from her hands and it sailed into Raven's waiting palm.

"Oh great, we're being invaded by a science fiction convention!" said the man with the H on his forehead. His jape was followed by laughter in the air that none of the other men seemed to notice.

"I suggest we open diplomatic negotiations before breaking out the Bazookoids." Said the robot with an upper class, Canadian accent. He approached and had the air of a butler about him. "Would you like me to do your laundry for you, Misses."

"KRYTERS!" Said the round face man, pulling the robot back.

"I'm sorry sir, but my dust sensors are just going off the charts!" Said the robot, now sounding less like a butler and more like a stressed house-wife. "I'm just so happy to see new clothes to wash, clean, press and iron. It's like Christmas came early, sir."

"Leave this to me!" The man with the H said, stepping up to the door. "Now see here." He said, nervously bouncing a little on the tips of his toes. "I am senior technician, acting Officer Arnold J. Rimmer of the Jupiter Mining Corporation transport vehicle Starbug. By boarding this vessel you have instigated an act of war!" He paused. Then proceeded to lift his hands up. "Therefore we surrender, totally and without condition."

The round-faced man laughed. "Rimmer, you've got a longer yellow streak than a stampede of diuretic camels!"

"Barriss, Alice." Raven said, "Deal with those four back there." The Imposter looked at them nervously. The three-eyed girl could not look at Raven and instead kept glancing at Barriss and Alice as if for protection. Raven's eyes for once became totally black as the frustration of the past few days started to bubble up. "We're both going to have a little chat."

Barriss and Alice left the cockpit and Raven closed the doors with her powers.

Raven licked her now sharp teeth. She wasn't ashamed for what she was about to do to the Imposter. As far as she was concerned the Imposter deserved it. All of it.

"You've made me lose one of my favourite, most cherished possessions, again." Raven said coldly and creepily. The Imposter froze, imprisoned in dark energy. "Since you want to take the Doctor's place so badly, you also take his place as my toy." She smirked evilly, "and you'll make a perfect voodoo doll."

Mentally Raven plucked at one of the Imposters chakra points, if plucked correctly they could cause massive amounts of pain, and it certainly did for the Imposter. "Ever heard of Chakra torture? The body has several energy centres like the heart, brain and genitals." Raven came close to the Imposter Doctor. "Chakra torture probes at these energy centres. The point is to cause the maximum amount of pain." Raven's eyes stared down into the Imposters. "Whilst keeping the victim alive for as long as possible." Raven let that sink in for a second. "Since you're just fiction, I'm willing to bet you'll be more robust than the average person." Raven probed again and the Imposter shrieked.

"Stop, I'll talk, I'll talk!" The Imposter cried.

Raven rested her hand at the side of the Imposters head and gently stroked her face, like a child with a toy; and like a snake, Raven replied, "I know you will." Raven rested her hand on the Imposters chest, fingers splayed. "But I still want to practice." She pressed her sharp nails into the Imposters chest through her shirt. "Let's see how many hearts you have, self-proclaimed Time Lord."

The Imposter did and unDoctor like thing in the circumstances. She fainted.

Shit, I overdid it. Her mind said, but her mouth said. "Oh," she cooed, "this isn't as fun when they're unconscious!"

Raven instantly dropped her powers all together.

Were you really going to torture her?!

I was really tempted.

It's more fun to scare people and watch them squirm like worms.

"You suck"

"You should delete this story."

"Kill yourself, you freak."

"You're a horrid, sick person for attacking Dolores like this."

"Dolores = The Imposter. Rachel is a bully! Rachel being 'Raven Daughter of Trigon's' real name!"

Rachel was reading the reviews on her story. She'd suddenly had a huge influx of reviews. Most were posted on the very first page, but all were just aimed at Rachel.

"The author of this story is a big bully, don't subscribe or read her stories. Take a stance against bullying. Point and shame her!"

A lot of these she just skimmed over. If they were less than a sentence she just ignored them.

Every now and then she'd come across a real, proper review.

"I enjoyed this story. I love the interaction with Raven and the Doctor. Not to make it sound personal, but it's similar to my own relationship with my estranged father. But we're patching things up. Raven has to be one of my favourite characters. You've really created something special here. Please continue it. Don't listen to these harsh comments. They clearly haven't read any of it at all."

Then there were reviews by people who really had too much free time on their hands.

"This story sucks. I've read all of it and Raven is such a sick, twisted creature. Is it any wonder she was bullied if she's this blunt with people. You're clearly blaming victims of her terror if you're trying to make people sympathetic to her. I feel no sympathy at all. Usually, I wouldn't hit a girl, but if I met Raven I'd beat her to within an inch of her life and I'd..."

Rachel refused to read any more. It was all vulgar and disgusting.

"I prefer the Imposter Doctor, she should be the Doctor instead now. It's about time we had a female at the controls of the TARDIS."

About time? Rachel had only been writing the story for the last few years and the only Doctor she'd described in the TARDIS was the 8th.

Rachel found a lot of these posts amusing, she didn't know why, she just did.

She did consider replying to some of these comments with a smart-arse remark. Rachel felt a pang of pleasure at the thought of Dolores and her mob seething in rage that their comments didn't even shake her. But she refrained for a few reasons.

For one, it might encourage them to up the stakes until they found something that really did bother her, and when they found it, they'd attack that mercilessly.

Second thing was, these people were clearly passionate about doing the 'right thing.' But it's just a shame that their passion makes them jump at shadows, or where-ever a manipulative little bitch pointed and screamed 'bully!'

Perhaps it's better to just not give it her attention.

In the mass of troll reviews there were plenty of proper reviews. Some by regular readers of the story. The rest were posted as anonymous reviewers. Some gave criticism, but none of it was harsh, and none had any reference to herself or Dolores. But these reviews were islands in a sea of harsher comments.

"This story is written by a horrid person using her writing to bully a friend of mine." Proclaimed another, "please read the story 'Fighting the Good Fight' by Dolores, linked here." The link didn't appear, the server did not allow links outside of the site to prevent spam. "At least she uses her real name instead of hiding behind a false one, RACHEL!"

Dolores is writing her own story?

Curiously, Rachel typed that name and author into a search engine and quickly found the story.

Good god! The site was covered with ads and pop-ups, it was ridiculous!

Plot: Angelica is a lovely sweet girl who just wants the world to be at peace. However, the school bullies led by Rachel Roth seek nothing but to provoke her. Follow Angelica's adventures as she cunningly outsmarts Rachel's gang at every turn in these comical, funny and heartwarming writings based on a true story.

Oh brother! Rachel rolled her eyes. Dolores cannot be for real?

Out of curiosity, Rachel decided to read a little bit of the story. She skipped ahead to a chapter where she knew her counterpart would be introduced.

'She was apprehensive about making friends. After all, Angelica was in a strange place with no people she knew at all. She'd already said hello and everyone pulled their chairs in, in a rather unwelcoming fashion. The only person who didn't was the odd-looking goth girl in the corner, who seemed more preoccupied with her laptop.

A kindred spirit perhaps, Angelica thought, and she approached the girl and lent over to read what she was writing. It looked to be science fantasy. Angelica loved science fantasy. Professor X, Star Trek, Star Wars were just some of her favourites.'

Okay, maybe this won't be so bad. Rachel briefly thought. Perhaps she sees things in a different way to me. Maybe this will shed some light on her behaviour.

The goth girl suddenly noticed Angelica behind her. "What do you want?" She bit, rather harshly.

"I'm just reading what you're writing. I love science fiction." Angelica said.

"Thanks, I guess." The goth girl shrugged, but her eyes had the look of aggression to them.

Is that true? Rachel wondered. Do my eyes sometimes look aggressive?

"I have some ideas for stories. Would you like to hear them?!" Angelica asked. She had so many ideas for stories. A lot of them dealing with things she was most passionate about. Acceptance, diversity, anti-bullying, smashing of oppressive systems that keep people down, achieving equality in the world. Surely, she and this girl would be the best of friends and achieve many things together.

But Rachels reply came.

"Piss off, fatty!"

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I never said that to her!

"What? Why did you say that? You don't even know what I want you to write."

"I don't take requests. I'm not trying to be your friend. This is my story." The goth girl said in reply.

"You don't have to be so nasty about it!" Angelica scolded.

"What are you going to do about it?!" the skinny Goth Girl fired back, "Go back to whatever school you came from. Preferably Fat Camp!"

Rachel could not believe what she was reading. Could Dolores be this delusional? Or was she doing this deliberately?

Skipping ahead she found several instances where the interaction with Angelica/Dolores and Rachel was changed so Angelica came out as the victor. In every instance, it was Rachel's counterpart who had egg on her face, and Angelica/Dolores walked away happily.

Rachel decided to do what Dolores was incapable of doing. Refused to read any more and forget all about it.

Skipping back to the first few chapters Rachel had some hope of gleaning some information about Dolores. After all, when Rachel wrote for Raven she kind of based her loosely on herself.

As Rachel read on and found out more about Angelica, she was starting to understand why Dolores was the way she was.

Dolores had written that Angelica was inspired and encouraged to do good by her mother, and her father was absent for most of her life. When he did come back he was often mean to her mother, constantly beating her, and eventually, he left altogether. It got to the point where Angelica decided fathers were over-rated and she didn't need one, so long as she had a mother to teach her right from wrong and to always fight for truth, and justice.

In that respect, Raven, Angelica and now presumably Dolores' backstories were eerily similar. Perhaps that's why Dolores had felt some resonation with the Raven character.

There was a slight pang of guilt for the way Rachel treated Dolores. Unfortunately, it evaporated when she remembered Dolores was always the aggressor, not her.

Rachel had no desire to leave a comment or review. She knew it'd be taken the wrong way if her name was attached to it. But she could leave an anonymous review.

I wonder... Rachel thought.

Rachel had an opinion purely on how the story was being written, and she decided to put those thoughts into writing and post it up in an anonymous account just to see what Dolores would say.

It didn't take long to get a mass of replies.

"Did you even read the story?"

"She doesn't have to change a thing, I think it's perfect!"

"You're missing the point of the story!"

"If you don't like it, don't read it!"

"Piss off, troll!"

Blah, blah, blah. Did they even read the review? Talk about overprotective.

Rachel was about to close down the web-page when she noticed something. There was a bio about the author. It wasn't an interesting read, it was mostly self-aggrandising. But at the bottom, it linked to the Lost Child of Azarath and proclaimed the author of that story to be who the bully is based on. Letting them know where to target their outrage.

What a hypocrite! Rachel raged. Anti-bullying indeed!

"Just be yourself, and people will realise that who you are, versus what she says you are, are two different things." Good advice her dad had given her. But how does she demonstrate that to people who she'd never meet in person, and clearly had no interest in understanding another perspective?

"Some people just want that pat on the head." Her dad had said. Now, looking at the comment section on Dolores's own story, Rachel understood how broad the 'pat on the head' metaphor was.

To Be Continued...

Authors notes: Edits 29/07/2019 After listening to this read out by the FFNet reader I've trimmed some of the excess fat off this chapter, because I'd described some things multiple times.

I've realised there aren't that many Doctor Who themed elements in the last few chapters. I'll soon remedy that, I promise. ;)

I wanted to do sort of a running commentary on troll reviews, and show how Rachel would handle them. I might expand on this a little bit later, because oh boy Rachel is going to be made part of something she's totally unaware of. But you'll have to read on and see. ;)

I've planted the idea that Raven is a little twisted in her head, and that she might actually enjoy torturing people she hates with Chakra torture. Some elements of it are somewhat shown in the TV show. But I'm going to leave that vague for now. Perhaps later I'll explore if Raven is really still that twisted.

In this chapter, I wanted to try to flesh out a little of Dolores. However, whether this accurately reflects the way she thinks, or if Dolores is totally aware of what she's doing I'll leave up to the reader. ;)