Edits [23/08/2019] I decided to edit a passage. It was supposed to be humorous, but after hearing it read out a couple of times by he FFNet reader I decided it was more on the creepy side than the funny side.
Chapter 59
The Truth Revealed.
Heave! She pushed, the walls parted again and she could see light. The Mistresses control room and the Master Brain came into view. But she didn't have the strength to push any harder and instead the walls snapped shut.
She was again in darkness.
Raven raced up the side of the cliff face as fast as her powers could levitate her. It was a long way up, but she reached the edge and set herself down on solid ground. It was made of rock and as smooth as glass, though still craggy.
There was someone just ahead. Someone Raven knew. A green girl in a long, blue hooded cloak.
Barriss Offee! Raven didn't expect to see that traitorous witch so soon.
"What are you doing here?" Raven said with venom.
"Huh?" Barriss turned and looked at her up and down. "Sorry, do you know where I am?"
Not the question Raven expected to hear. The goth girl had such a headache from this world that may be destroying this space monk again would make her feel better. Raven raised her hands and charged her powers.
Barriss did not look like she was threatened. She cocked her head to one side curiously. "I'm sorry. Who are you?"
That question really took Raven off guard.
"You know who I am, Barriss." Raven said spitefully.
Barriss took a step back, but not out of fear, but out of surprise. She looked like she was searching for the right words. "This Jedi Girl fails to recognise."
Weird way to talk, and some of Raven's venom began to drain.
"What's wrong with you?" Raven asked, dropping some of her menace.
"I don't believe we have met. Padawan Barriss Offee, at your service." and Offee knelt down and curtsied in greeting.
It was Raven's turn to take a step back. Barriss was pretending not to know her. What was Barriss's game?
"I do not believe you just so happen to forget me!" Raven said, firing up her powers again. But again Barriss looked more curious than threatened.
"You have such a lovely way of greeting people." Was that sarcasm? "At times like this, the memory fails."
The way she'd just said that... it was as if it was lifted from somewhere else. It was like talking to Gulliver, a character who was two dimensional...
A nasty thought crossed Raven's mind.
"Barriss, say 'Raven,' 'TARDIS' and 'Gallifrey.'" Raven asked. A pause before Barriss spoke.
"I fail to see the necessity of that." Raven's heart began to sink as a disturbing thought entered her head. She didn't want to say those words... because she couldn't say those words. She'd never said them within her own fiction, so she couldn't say them at all.
"Barriss, please tell me you know me." Raven said as anxiety began to rise up in her stomach, "The Doctor, Alice of Wonderland, Captain Hook?"
Again Barriss looked clueless. "I am sorry. I have failed you." The space monk said sadly, "I failed you." There was something about her manner which seemed 'uncanny valley,' like a robot trying to emulate how a human behaves.
She was like Gulliver. Like she was struggling to be understood with the limited dialogue she has access to. When Raven did... what she did she thought Barriss would just pop back up and be the same person. It never occurred to Raven that it would also reset her back to square one.
I've killed her... Her mind suddenly concluded. No! Oh god, please no!
"Barriss, please tell me you remember me?" Raven felt butterflies in her stomach.
Barriss looked her up and down again. "Who are you?"
I've killed her...
Barriss might still be alive, as a fiction, she can't die. But what she evolved into, what she worked so hard to become. That was gone, it was dead, and Raven did it!
I killed her...
Raven felt sick. She'd never actually killed a person, but now she felt cold. She might not have killed the fictional space monk. But she'd destroyed her soul, and that was bad enough. She'd killed the Barriss she'd come to know.
I killed her, I killed her, I killed her! NO! Her mind rang.
Raven stepped away and backed as fast as she could away from the space monk.
"Is something the matter?" Barriss asked innocently.
"I'm sorry!" Raven said, the negative emotions threatened to overwhelm her.
"Sorry, about what?" Barriss asked, she didn't know, and that made Raven feel worse.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" and Raven quickly flew away from her as fast as she could.
That is what death meant to an advanced fiction. Death meant losing everything you were, your memories, everything which made you, you. Like wiping a person's memory so they were an infant again.
She was a traitor, she deserved it.
But I didn't want to actually kill her, kill her!
She's still alive, fictions can't die.
She's not the same, she won't develop into the same person again. I might as well have killed her!
Barriss had begged, pleading that she was alive, and Raven didn't listen.
She was alive! Barriss was alive! Oh god, Barriss was alive! And I killed her!
The emotions of that realisation took hold of Raven and she dropped to the floor. She buried her head in her hands and tried to control herself. She didn't cry, but her mind was screaming at her.
I'm a monster.
I murdered her!
I killed her! I killed her!
"Hello, Raven!" Raven opened her eyes and she saw someone else she recognised. It was Alice. She was here waiting for her. What was Alice doing down here? "Come on, it's time to come quietly."
Stepping from behind her was the large, purple form of the Imposter, and two White Robots. Alice didn't seem disturbed by their presence as they advanced with her.
Raven's eyes began to widen as the truth of the situation sunk in, and her eyes looked at Alice darkly.
"You're the one who betrayed us. Not Barriss!" That made Raven feel even worse. Barriss was innocent, she'd killed Barriss for no reason!
"Like I said, Raven, there's nothing worse for a fiction than to be forgotten, and my story could certainly benefit with some additions." Alice smiled.
"You traitor!" Raven spat as she stood up.
"You were so easy to manipulate, Raven. It's like in chess, a bluff here, a slight out-manoeuvre there. Like all my traps you fell right into this one." Alice said, smiling sweetly.
"But what about the resistance?" Raven asked.
"The Mistress has promised me so much. So many new stories for me. How could I say no?" Alice said, "I don't have to be the ignorant young girl anymore. I will be taken seriously, I won't need someone like Captain Hook for people to listen to me."
"Give up, you freaky Dalek!" That was the Imposter. "We have you surrounded. Give me back my counterpart and my TARDIS and submit to the will of the Mistress."
Raven stood and faced the two girls defiantly. "You two..." she breathed "can piss off!"
"Language!" Alice shrieked.
The Imposter and her robots advanced still, and the Imposter drew some kind of laser weapon. She really was nothing like the Doctor. Without even a warning the Imposter fired it. Raven tried to put up a shield, but the lightening the gun fired just snaked around the shield and impacted Raven's body electrocuting her.
Every nerve in her body lit up like a Christmas tree, in pain. She just wanted the pain to stop, but she fought the need to blackout. She would not give in, and as soon as this was over the Imposter was so dead!
Snap-hiss!
Went something and the Imposters weapon was sliced in two by the laser sword of the space monk Barriss. The green girl held out her hand palm facing the Imposter and she was flung backwards by an invisible force and slammed into a big, black wall. Another swipe took out the two white robots, severing their heads from their bodies.
"Barriss? You're alive!" Alice said with shock.
"I don't know you." Barriss said.
"She's re-manifested." The Imposter said, getting to her feet. "Listen to me, that pale girl is a Sith, as a Jedi you must destroy her."
Barriss looked to Raven and scanned her, but she didn't look convinced.
"The Force is real. But does not exist for you." Barriss said.
"Thanks." Raven said, guessing this meant she disbelieved the accusation.
Barriss turned back to the two girls, her laser sword still lit.
"This won't do at all." Alice said, and she took her biscuits from her pockets, bit into one of them and her form grew to massive proportions.
Barriss leapt back in amazement at what she'd witnessed. Alice raised her foot and attempted to bring it down on the two hooded girls. But they avoided the larger girls feet easily.
Raven flew into the sky as Barriss attempted to attack from the ground. For some reason, Barriss refused to use her laser sword to cut into the ankles of Alice to chop her down. Must be a Jedi thing. But she did attempt to use her weaker Force powers to put Alice off balance.
Raven flew around, trying to avoid Alices hands and arms, but the giant girl was so quick. Her arms moved far too fast. Raven tried a number of things to get her off balance. Pull her hair with her powers, blind her with an energy blast, put a sharp pain in her ears. But Raven couldn't hold still long enough to concentrate with Alice's arms constantly trying to swat her.
Now Barriss had her own problems as the heavy set Imposter tackled her and now they were both wrestling on the floor.
Alice reached out to grab Raven, but the demon girl avoided her hand, flew down the length of her arm and swiftly kicked her in her right eye.
Blinded, Alice stepped back, clutching at her face, and Raven went down to aid Barriss, who had broken free herself and swiftly kicked the Imposter in the face. God, it was satisfying to watch, Raven only wished she'd done it.
As Barriss got up, retrieved and activated her laser sword, the Imposter drew a small pen-like device from her pocket. It looked like a Sonic Screwdriver, only when she activated it a purple blade extended from it. The Imposter had her own laser sword?
"I am a Master of the Jedi arts too." The Imposter boasted. Okay, now someone was just making stuff up. But in the Land of Fiction, any made-up stuff became real, because the Imposter was able to go toe-to-toe with Barriss on a one on one sabre battle. In fact, the Imposter appeared to be the superior fighter!
A loud thud caught Raven's attention and she got the feeling she should move. It was a good call, as a clenched fist passed by where Raven had just been.
Raven needed a permanent solution for Alice, because no matter how powerful the goth girl was Raven could not subdue Alice as a giant. She needed to shrink her down to size.
The key is not to make the best move, but the move your opponent least wants you to make. As Alice had said.
The bottle containing the shrinking potion should be in her pinafore pocket. All Raven had to do was get it. But Alice needed distracting.
Raven tried again to attack at her eyes, but Alice was ready now and she managed to swat Raven away. It didn't hurt, it was surprisingly gentle, but that probably wasn't on purpose.
A list of spells and incantations rolled through Raven's head, all of them useless. So she settled for forming a giant ball of black energy above her head and she fired it forwards at Alice. It impacted her but didn't do nearly what Raven needed.
She had an idea to use something to tie up her legs. Like maybe metal girders, or cable or something. But nothing like that was here. Maybe she was wearing something Raven could take advantage of. But her shoes were buckled, she wasn't wearing a band or bow in her yellow hair, like some depictions of her.
As Alice reached for her Raven had a simple idea. Using her powers she took Alice's pinafore and forced it upwards in front of her face and made it wrap around her head. As she fought with that Raven saw from the upturned pinafore pockets fell the biscuits and the bottle.
Dropping her powers Raven called the biscuits and the bottle to herself. Alice didn't seem to notice Raven now had them as Alice pushed her pinafore back down. The giant was annoyed now.
Now was the tricky part.
Raven flew up, avoiding Alices grasping hands. She had to get close enough to Alices' mouth for this to work. Again, Raven had a sneaky idea.
The key is not to make the best move, but the move your opponent least wants you to make.
What is the move Alice won't expect Raven to make?
It was a gamble, but it was all she had. Raven stopped and pretended to make a blunder. Alices hands grasped her and squeezed her.
"I've got her! I've got this bothersome insect!" Alice cheered and brought Raven up to her face, now holding her firmly in both hands.
"You betrayed us." Raven accused.
"Sorry, but if it makes you feel any better, I did like you. But our relationship was never going to last. ACHOO!" She sneezed, as Raven had used her powers to flick the giant's nose. "How childish, ACHOO!" She began to breathe in deeply again, preparing to sneeze a third time.
That's when Raven's powers pulled the bottle of Alice's potion from within her cloak. The bottle flew off and the liquid escaped like a cannon going off and went straight down Alice's gullet as she breathed in. She didn't sneeze, she gagged on the liquid going down her throat. She then began having a coughing fit.
Alice noticed something was wrong when it looked like Raven was getting bigger in her hands, when it was Alice who was shrinking.
The shrinking giant let go of Raven and reached into her pinafore for her biscuits. Raven landed on the ground, now both she and Alice were the same size. Only then did Alice know her biscuits were missing, and Raven held them up in her own hands.
"Checkmate!" Raven said coldly.
Alice reached forward to swipe at the biscuits, but they were already out of her reach. Not because Raven moved them, but because curiously Alice continued to shrink down. She still attempted to reach up Raven to get her magic biscuits as she reduced to below Raven's waist and continued to reduce. Within seconds she was lilliputian sized and still, she became smaller, and smaller, and smaller. Eventually, she became so small Raven could barely see her with the naked eye anymore. But on the dark floor, the demon girl was certain she could make out a small blue, yellow and white speck raging at her.
Raven smirked evilly, she knelt down and held up Alices biscuits so the speck could see.
"You want these?!" and Raven swung her arms and threw them over the side of the cliff and down into the mist below. She turned back to the speck. "Go get them!" and to add insult to injury Raven sharply blew at the speck and watched it roll away and vanish into the craggy floor.
Rapidly running feet told Raven the Imposter was running at her, her arms raised with that laser sword ready to cut her down.
Compared to Alice this would be easy.
The Imposter swung at Raven, but Raven did something unexpected. Like she did earlier with her cuffs Raven used her powers to enable the demon girl to pass through the Imposter like a ghost. Her blade mist the sorceress. Caught off balance the Imposter stopped herself before she went over the edge. She was waving her arms, just keeping herself balanced on the edge.
Raven looked back and her heart sank. Barriss was in a heap on the floor, a burn mark through her torso. She'd been killed... again!
Before the Imposter could regain her footing Raven gave the Imposter Doctor a swift kick to send her over the edge. She fell down into the mist and Raven imagined the big girl landed with an earth-quaking thud.
"You bitch! You Dalek!" The Imposter Doctor shouted up. She was still alive?! "The Mistress is going to give me powers to match yours!" Where the Imposter landed a dozen or so small lights appeared in the mist, "and when I get back up there you are dead! Do you hear me? D-E-A-D, DEAD!" The lights appeared to move in pairs and they surrounded and slowly approached the Imposter Doctor, almost like they were hunting her.
What did the Imposter fear? Fireflies?
"I hate you? I hate evil Daleks like you!" the Imposter continued to shout up through the mist at Raven, but she trailed off. Presumably, she noticed the lights around her. A great sense of fear radiated from the mist, Raven could sense it.
The lights began to flash in their pairs to the sound of a voice. An echoing, aggressive, mechanical voice which thundered out. They chanted just one word in such utter hatred.
"EXTERMINATE!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
"NO!" The Imposter shrieked. "Go away!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
"You can't! I'm the Doctor, you can't do this." The lights didn't break their chant.
"EXTERMINATE!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
"You should fear me, I'm the Doctor. I am your fear!"
"EXTERMINATE!" The lights were closing in on the Imposter giving her no chance to run. "EXTERMINATE!"
"It's not fair! I'm the Doctor now, you can't do this to me!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
"EXTERMINATE!" The lights stopped moving and the Imposter was utterly surrounded.
"EXTERMINATE!"
"EXTERMINATE!"
"I just wanted to be like my hero..."
"EX-TER-MIN-AAAAAAATE!"
Several lances of blue light fired from the lights directly at the Imposter. Raven saw the Imposter's outline shrouded in an electrified halo, which highlighted her skeleton as it jerked around in intense pain. Raven could almost feel it as the Imposter screamed. When the scream stopped the Imposters life force was gone.
What the heck had just killed her? Whatever they were, they'd vanished too with the Imposters life.
Raven turned back to Barriss and raced up to her. The space monk's eyes stared out. She had died twice now, because of Raven. Once by her hand, and again trying to defend her.
The demon girl didn't know how to process these emotions, but she hated looking at Barrisses dead, blue eyes. The only consolation was that at least this time she hadn't lost anything. She'd re-spawn in this world, minus the knowledge of Raven and what she'd done for her.
Raven knelt down, looked into Barriss's eyes. Emotions cracked in Raven's voice as she said.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Raven closed Barriss's eyes. She didn't expect forgiveness, she didn't want it, she didn't deserve it even if it was offered.
Raven was a monster. Oh God, she was a monster!
The goth girl stood up and turned away from Barriss. Fire was now in Raven's eyes. She saw the fictions as alive now, as living creatures, like her, at least in potential. This made the monstrousness and hypocrisy of the Mistresses plans' more clear to Raven now.
There was a door at the far side of this void. Probably how Alice and the Imposter got in here.
Raven walked towards it. It was time to end this once and for all.
Rachel felt her head as her mind stopped dreaming about her fiction for a second and she came back to reality. Rachel had ran her fingers across the edge of the console, the wood felt cool and smooth, and she'd suddenly began thinking about Raven's journey again.
But now, back in reality, she had a hard time accepting this. The TARDIS was definitely real. She then placed her hand against the glass column.
Something echoed in the darkness above. Rachel leapt back and the console came to life. Lights flashed, and the sounds of mysterious devices activated.
How could the TARDIS be real? It was something she'd dreamt up. She wasn't complaining. She'd love a TARDIS, but this was so ridiculous.
Like Raven in the story, Rachel reached out to experimentally try a control. But a hand reached out and swatted her away!
She jumped back and pressed herself against one of the girders as a man adjusted a control himself.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you." He said, his voice deep, and rich. His hair was big and curly and he wore a regal, long, burgundy velvet coat. Most noticeably, he had a very long, multi-coloured scarf wrapped around his neck.
If this was the TARDIS then this meant that was the...
"Doctor?" Rachel asked.
"Yes, in a manner of speaking." The man smiled a crazed, but friendly toothy grin. "Hello, Rae-Rae." He said slowly.
"I must be dreaming. I'm under a lot of stress and I've fallen asleep." Rachel rationalised. "OW!" She shrieked as the Doctor pinched her arm, proving his point.
He then turned to the console. "Ah!" He said as if not impressed. "Very Jewels Verne, though perhaps a tad ostentatious, wouldn't you agree?" The Doctor asked.
Was Rachel's fictional character criticising her? "This coming from the guy in the mile-long scarf!" She shot back.
"Ah, well, you think you created both it and me, so what does that say about your imagination?" He said back with a grin.
"Smart-ass." Rachel smiled a little, she was proud of her creation. But why was the Doctors fourth incarnation in this TARDIS? That's not the order she created them in.
"Oh well, no need to feel bad about it." The Doctor said, waving his hand dismissively. "For you see, I'm not a figment of your imagination, nor am I your invention. Neither for that matter is the TARDIS."
"Excuse me?" Rachel asked, raising an eyebrow. "I created you, I'm your author."
The Doctor grinned wider, and his blue eyes fixed her with a stare. "You're not. I'm quite real."
Rachel dismissed that immediately, the Doctor was her character, the TARDIS was her invention. She remembered coming up with the concept when she hid in a Police Box in England and...
"Why is the TARDIS inside my hoodie?" Rachel asked. Had she been wearing the TARDIS all this time?
"Ah, well. That's rather a long story." The Doctor said, adjusting some controls on the console, just like his eighth self would. "But let me start off with a slight correction." The Doctor said looking at her from over the console. "I'm real, the TARDIS is real. But you're not, in a manner of speaking."
"Huh?" Rachel's expression dropped.
"Well, you are real in one sense. But in another, you don't even exist." The Doctor said vaguely. "You've been recounting the events which happened to our counterparts?"
"My story?" Rachel asked.
"Yes. You see, while you've been going about your school drama out there. I was trying to boost the TARDIS telepathic circuits so I could make contact with you." The Doctor explained, "The best I could do was funnel your consciousness through the telepathic circuits and filter out just enough of the nonsense that the truth began to bubble up to the surface."
"Uh-huh. Sure." Rachel said dismissively.
"It manifested in your mind as a story, and the fiction you're in, adapted it to fit." That got Rachels attention.
"Fiction?" Rachel asked.
"You have a wonderful way with concise answers." The Doctor grinned at his cheeky, sarcastic joke. "But yes, I'm sorry to tell you this, Rachel Roth, but you are the fiction, not me, not the TARDIS and not Raven."
Rachel took a step away from the console and the Doctor, and she ended up backing away and falling backwards when she backed into the reading chair.
"Don't be frightened, don't be frightened." The Doctor said lowly, offering her a paper bag. Jelly babies.
Cautiously Rachel reached out to take one, but the Doctor pushed the entire bag into her hand. The Doctor then sat himself down on the footstool and picked up a steaming cup of tea from the small table next to the chair. There was a second cup of tea next to Rachel. She dug out a jelly baby from the bag, an orange one, and she bit into it. Strangely Rachel felt very relaxed in the presence of this man. It's not every day the author gets to have a conversation with her own creation. "Your entire world is a battleground between two minds." The Doctor said suddenly.
Memories of what happened today flooded her mind and she felt her mood dip again.
"It's a pitched battle against Raven and the Mistress." The Doctor explained, "She wants to fictionalise us, you see. Turn us into her puppets, re-write our origins to bring us more into line with how she thinks we should be, how we should act, how we should think."
"But I'm real." Rachel insisted.
"All fictions think that." The Doctor shrugged.
"How do you know you're real?" Rachel shot back.
The Doctor shrugged and said in a humorous way. "Ah, well, because I just know, because I'm the Doctor."
"Yeah, very logical and well reasoned." Rachel said rolling her eyes.
"What happened next in the story?" The Doctor asked. "You must be near the end by now, surely?"
"What does the story matter?" Rachel asked.
"It'll help you understand." The Doctor prompted. "Clear your mind. Let the telepathic circuits dredge it up from your subconscious. All shall be revealed."
Sighing Rachel closed her eyes and imagined how the story should end.
The door did indeed lead back into the Mistress's fortress. Raven mentally prepared herself to fight.
The Mistress must know she couldn't win against her. Raven's powers clearly trumped whatever the Mistress had in her arsenal, all Raven had to do was be wary of tricks and deceit.
Her mind calm and totally focused Raven approached the door and slowly past through it like a ghost, hovering just above the floor. Her eyes glowed intensely.
When the Mistress caught sight of her she retreated from her desk. She was alone. Where were her other fictions? Raven suspected a trap, the Mistress wasn't so stupid to leave herself vulnerable... was she?
"You?!" The Mistress shrieked, "Wait, let's talk about this!"
"How do you intend to talk once I take your tongue as a souvenir?" Raven threatened, but her voice was calm and level.
The large woman retreated back towards a wall.
"Where's the Doctor? Your Doctor?! Doctor! Help!" She shrieked.
The Mistress backed into the wall and pressed herself into it. Raven raised her arms and prepared to cast. She'd been 'so' looking forward to this.
Suddenly the wall moved, flipped across, pushing the Mistress out of the way and revealing a blank, white wall behind. No, not a wall. A giant sheet of paper. Many sheets of paper, one stacked behind the other.
It was a giant book?!
As she realised that, Raven felt something shoot her in the back, forcing her forward and before she could do anything the two halves of this giant book began closing on her!
She held the edges, but the force closing the book was too strong and soon she was sealed in darkness.
What was happening? This felt weird! Like her existence became flexible and intangible. In the back of her head, she suspected what was happening, and her subconscious did the only thing she could think. She imagined, she pretended. She protected herself.
"Rachel! It's time to get up!" Huh?
"Rachel! It's time to get up!" What was that? It kind of felt like she was waking up.
"Rachel! It's time to get up!"
Rachel? Raven stirred in her bed. Who is Rachel?
Rachel was back to that morning again! Why did she keep coming back to that morning? She tried to use her vivid imagination and come up with something else. But nothing else would manifest in her brain.
"It's not 'imagination' you're using." The scarf-wearing Doctor said, "but your memories."
"Memories?" Rachel thought as things weirdly began to fit together in her head. But she didn't like what it was spelling out.
"When you were sealed inside the book the mistress was about to place Raven into a fiction where she could control her. But she didn't bank on a few things." The Doctor leaned forward and stared into Rachel's eyes. "Raven had a fiction of her own, her ideal life, and with her existence being so flexible at the time, Raven created it, claiming herself as her own character before the Mistress could."
As this began to sink in Rachel began to realise what he meant. Raven wasn't her creation. Rachel was Raven's creation. This entire world was Raven's creation. Her Dad, her mother, the Doctor teachers, Maria and her goons.
"This is all Ravens creation?" Rachel asked, a little scared. "What about my friends? Stella, Garfield, Victor and Richard. Where did they come from? I've never written about them and I don't think Raven knows them."
The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know. They were Raven's creations, generated to help protect her. To protect you from an intrusive invader. You see, since the Mistress missed her chance to claim Raven as her own she invented a 'fan-character' and introduced her to the story. The one you call Dolores. Since then she's been attempting to hijack Raven's fiction by slowly claiming all the side characters. Starting with Maria and her friends, and slowly she began collecting other people to her side, the other children in your school. The ones Raven didn't flesh out. She filled your fiction with her own creations, filling in the gaps you left."
"Why?" Rachel asked. The Doctor shrugged.
"Because she's spiteful, narcissistic, twisted, and a petulant child." The Doctor summarised, "But she wants to command your powers and tell you what to do, but most of all she wants the TARDIS and the Doctor." The Doctor smiled, "But you dumped them into your mind, where she couldn't reach them. When the Mistress fictionalised Raven, the TARDIS and the Doctor were mixed up inside the fictions. Aspects of the Doctor were used to build certain characters, such as your Dad and the Teachers. That's why the Mistress could not command them, because they contain parts of the Doctors soul. And the TARDIS..."
"The TARDIS..." Rachel began, "Was Raven's home, in the story she wanted to constantly carry it around with her so she'd always have a safe place to retreat to. She felt safe and secure inside it, just like how she feels with her own cloak. So they were both merged into my hoodie?"
"The perfect place to hide it." The Doctor smiled, "It's not obvious, and she'd never find it unless she understood your connection with the machine and your cloak."
"So I've been carrying you around with me all this time?" Rachel asked, "Why didn't you try to get my attention earlier?"
"You seemed to be managing by yourself. While we were all well-protected, I began trying to formulate a way to escape. The TARDIS doesn't work in this world you see. So I formulated plans to try to get us both out of here. But none of them seemed to work. The last time this happened, it happened to Jamie and Zoe, only I was plugged into the Master Brain at the time, so I was able to fight back and release them. That's what I've been doing, trying to find a back door into the Master Brain from here."
"Did you find one?" Rachel asked.
"Yes, though my influence is limited. But I did begin spreading information about the Mistress and her practices to the other fictions. Such as her view that all fictions are just her puppets and tools for her to use and re-write as she pleases." The Doctor grinned, "She really didn't like that." The Doctor nodded in a general direction. "The fictions are beginning to rally against her you see. She's in danger of losing. That's why she's stepped up her assault on your mind. She knows your powers can trump this fictional world, and she needs to break you to claim you as a fiction she can control with a stroke of a pen."
"How can she claim me?" Rachel asked.
"You've noticed she's been writing out a fiction of her own. Stuff which hasn't happened yet." He said.
"Yes." Rachel nodded, the story 'Fighting the Good Fight.'
"Well, when the writing comes first, that's fiction. If you were to act out the fiction, you become fiction to be commanded. That's how this world works." The Doctor laughed, "Only, you're hardly predictable. You don't act the way she thinks you'll act. She predicts you'll behave one way, you behave another." He laughed again. "Shows how much of a bad character writer she is. She only knows how to write characters who think and act like herself." His tone became serious. "But ultimately, if she can make her fiction swallow you up into its web, then you, your story, as well as me, and the TARDIS, become hers to write."
Oh god, this made the entire world outside a minefield. If she behaved precisely the way the Mistress predicts, then she was doomed. But it meant her friends, her mother, her Dad, all the people she loved weren't real and she'd lose them forever.
There was a long pause before Rachel next spoke. "I don't believe you."
"Haven't you noticed the inconsistencies in your world? How the longer you went on, the more logic seemed to fall apart?" He asked. "Today, a Headmistress would never have the power to do what she did. She'd never be able to act so callously towards a student, even if they thought they were a bully. Did you not notice how all the other students looked somewhat indistinct? Like they were copies of the same faces, over and over again? Or that you had afterschool detention for two weeks and conveniently forgot about it afterwards? You wrote about characters like the Blues Brothers, despite not knowing who they were. You wrote about Barriss Offee, despite never having seen a Star Wars movie, never mind the Clone Wars TV show and books. So how come you knew about them?" She didn't know. Who were the Blues Brothers? What was Star Wars, where did Barriss Offee even come from? She'd never thought to ask. "Didn't you notice at the start, how you were apparently born and raised in England, yet you have an American accent? Despite having moved to the states later in life?"
Rachel swallowed, okay that actually was weird. She tried to think of a rational explanation for this. But in her memories, she never once remembered ever speaking with an English accent; and her memories, she had no memories, not really? She just knew what happened, but the moment she tried to conjure memories, pictures, images, there was nothing. She could feel what happened, but not see it.
"How did you meet your friends?" The Doctor prompted, "How did you meet Stella? Garfield, Victor, Richard?"
Rachel couldn't answer that. She just... bumped into them one morning at school and... and... and...
"I don't know..." She answered quietly. She couldn't believe it. "I... I'm not real? I'm... I'm Raven's fantasy?" Weird that Raven would dream up a life where her counter-part dreamed of being Raven. That was weird. If it was true then in a way she was glad. Rachel's life was messed up now anyway, she'd take any out she could get, including becoming Raven again. But then she remembered how sad Raven was. She was still infinitely lonely, she longed for friends, she longed for a normal life, she longed for love, she longed for a real father figure. Rachel had a Dad, she loved her Dad, she loved her parents, both were happy. That was something Rachel had that Raven didn't. For the first time Rachel actually realised how miserable Raven was, and she deeply felt sorry for her.
"Funny, isn't it, being fictional?" The Doctor asked, "It's like being deaf, going your whole life and never understanding that when you clap your hands it makes a noise. It's something all fictions are blind to. We carry on, living without it, but we never experience real life."
Rachel wasn't listening. She was thinking. Her whole world was falling apart because of Dolores... no, the Mistress. The Mistress wanted to get her hands on her characters, on Raven, the Doctor and the TARDIS because they were real. Rachel's fingers curled up in anger. Her life was being messed up because the Mistress wanted them, and she'd destroy anything to get them. Raven thought she was a monster, Raven had nothing on the Mistress. Rachel liked to think she knew Raven enough to know that she wouldn't ruin a whole world just to get what she wants. Would she? Would she?
Rachel forgot for a second, she was the fiction, not Raven.
"Okay, what do we do now?" Rachel asked, standing up. She didn't care anymore, this world was ruined and all she wanted to do was give the middle finger to the woman who decided to ruin her perfect life.
"You need to find a way to break the fiction down." The Doctor said.
"How?" Rachel asked.
"How else do you break fiction?" The Doctor asked. When Rachel didn't answer he added. "What is it that brings you out of a story you're reading?"
"Plot holes? Inconsistencies?" There were tonnes of them in this fiction alone, Rachel understood that. The Doctor shook his head. Okay, Rachel admitted, entertaining stories could hold your attention beyond such things. It'd have to be a big plot hole to break the immersion.
"Break the wall, break the immersion," Rachel remembered. "Four walls, one must break." She sighed, "Why do these things have to be cryptic?"
"It's a storytelling trope." The Doctor shrugged. "But what that means is..."
"The Fourth Wall." Rachel cut across, she didn't need it to be explained to her, "Break the Fourth Wall, Break the Immersion, Break the Spell of fiction." Something occurred to Rachel. "Is that why I made you the guide? The Fourth Wall, the Fourth Doctor?" But the Doctor just shrugged, he didn't know.
"How do you intend to break the Fourth Wall?" The Doctor prompted. Rachel was certain he knew a way, but wanted Rachel to work it out herself.
"You talk to the audience." Rachel realised, "I speak directly to the audience, and let them know its a fiction!" Rachel stood and looked to the sky. "This is all a fiction, it's not real!" She shouted "I'm fictional, everyone around here is fictional. Haven't you got more important stuff to do with your life?!"
But nothing happened. The Doctor stood and came to stand next to her. He looked up at the same spot in the void above that Raven was staring at.
"Well, sound theory, but one flaw." He cleared his throat. "You are your own audience. At least in your half of the story."
"What do you mean?" Rachel asked.
"Well, you're not the only one trying to write this tale. Someone else is writing the other half from another perspective. It's her you need to break the spell on. You need to address her directly. At the moment, we are performing actions outside of her writings, so she can't see it. You need to get into her story and do something unexpected which snaps her out of the flow of the story. Calling out the fiction won't be enough, however, because she could rationalise it by claiming your character went insane."
Rachel thought about it for a while. What would snap someone out of the spell of the 'Fight the Good Fight'? The world was already skewed and boring, full of plot holes and inconsistencies. It was also ultimately boring because it was like a Teen Soap or something like that.
Her eyes grew wide, she looked around the TARDIS as an idea formed in her head. "Introduce a genre-shattering change." Rachel smiled darkly. "I have an idea."
The Doctor smiled a proud, toothy smile.
To Be Continued...
Authors notes: I always intended Alice to betray Raven. Like the character Cypher in the Matrix, the offer of a new life with a bigger role in the fictional Matrix was enough to sway him. I imagined Alice would've been tired being stuck as a very young girl no one took seriously since her character would never technically age in the Land of Fiction, she could evolve, but the perception of her as nothing but a young girl would've greatly irritated her.
The Imposter being killed by real Daleks was always the plan.
The original title for this chapter was. "The move she didn't want you to make." But it was too long to be accepted.
Again, I might make small edits as I listen to it with the FFnet reader.
Cheers