Round 7

Judge: deced

 

6.0 themink VALID "Professor!" Ace cried, the sense of foreboding apparent in her voice, even more so than usual. "Something feels different."

 

The Doctor wasn't as glum. "Yes, Ace, I feel it too. Possibilities are opening up to us, and all our rrrrestrrrrictions are falling away, like we're shedding a snakeskin."

"I hate sna..." Ace began, but her voice trailed off. The countryside had briefly become enshrouded in a magenta haze, and now shapes began to emerge -- shapes of many dimensions that Ace couldn't describe with mere human thought and language, but which she perceived nonetheless.

The Doctor had seen something like them before, but was still fascinated. He peered at the nearest monolith, and tapped it with his umbrella. He could see the blurry motion of beings deep within the body of the hypertesseract, but he could also see his own, merely three-dimensional face staring back at him, reflected in one of its edges. "They're mirrors!"

Ace looked behind them and began to panic. "They're all around us!"

The Doctor turned. "Yes, but no need for alarm, Ace. We've just got to choose one."

"Choose one?"

"I believe we're on one of what the Susanic rrrace calls the Mirror Worlds: planets that were once home to thrrrriving populations of animal life that were all trrransported away by packs of these mirrors. They derrrive their sustenance by spiriting away sentient beings somewhere else in the universe, where they've got less potential energy, and they keep the lost energy for themselves."

"But can't we just walk between them and out of the circle, Professor?" Ace tried to slip through what apeared to be an eighteen inch gap between two of them, but though they were no longer moving, she found herself unexpectedly blocked. She turned again to what appeared to be an empty path, but each time she took a step forward, she found there was really no way to pass through.

"It's no use, Ace, they've too many spatial dimensions. A human mind can't fully comprehend exactly where these things are. I can barely understand it myself."

"So you said we've got to choose one?"

"Yes, indeed. We've got to step into one of them, and we'll be somewhere else in the universe. It'll be somewhere reasonably safe, because if it kills us, it won't be able to harvest our potential energy. The trouble is, we could end up several galaxies away from the Tardis."

"Daleks, Professor!" Ace was staring deep into the center of the nearest mirror-lith.

The Doctor followed her gaze, and made out several daleks rumbling across a craggy wasteland. "Hmmm, we won't choose that one, then." He tried the one to its left, and was puzzled. "This one seems to lead to a horse... on a spaceship?"

Ace was engaged with another mirror. "I see... a cat person on a throne, with a wreath of clovers... she's talking to a human..." Ace's voice became softer, as though she was speaking from a distance. "When I look at her, I feel like I could run like a cat, just running forever with the wind in my fur and the grass beneath my feet, only stopping occasionally when I find a leafy bush that offers decent privacy and some sandy soil."

Ace's mind was too far away to realize it, but she was about to make a crucial decision from which there could be no turning back, as a character will do in each part of this story.

She plunged directly into the heart of the multidimensional, monolithic mirror.

"Ace!" cried the Doctor, and dived headlong after her.

 

6.1 deced  VALID  Ace instinctively reached into her bomber jacket's right pocket, and stroked a canister of Nitro-Aleph-Nine, darting glances around the strange and majestic courtroom.

 

"What is the meaning of this interruption?" cried the cat person on the throne. 

Ace could taste the authority in her voice, and it tasted bitter: this, and perhaps a subliminal reawakening of a sense of partial kinship with the feline side of the cat person's nature, brought a jaundiced glow to Ace's eyes. She narrowed them, and her hand tensed in her pocket, as she prepared to unleash a barrage of near-profanities at this arrogant cat. But before she could issue her tirade, the Doctor appeared, upside down, on the ceiling. "Not half as interesting as the interruption of this meaning," he said, as he rapidly fell to the floor. 

The cat person eyed this new humanoid with amusement as he spectacularly failed to land on his feet. Her amusement turned to astonishment, as rays of golden light poured from this man's collar, trouser legs, and cuffs. "Time Lord," she whispered.

Ace ran to the Doctor, grabbed his arm. "What the heck's going on, Professor?"

The Doctor could not hear his faithful companion, still less reply. His whole being was focussed on the Choice: what new form would his body, his brain, his very spirit, take? He made the Choice.

What Choice did the Doctor make? Will his new nature be influenced by the physical proximity of Ace? How did the cat person know about Time Lords? Does cloverkitty like catnip? All this, and more, will be revealed in the next, exciting episode of This Story!

 

6.2 cloverkitty  VALID  "Back off, Ace!" shouted the Doctor. "I'm rrrrregenerating, and there's nothing you can do to rrrreverse it."

 

The rays of golden light intensified, and he shuddered, as if in pain. His face registered terror, then settled into an expression of intense concentration. With much effort, he managed to spit out: "Afterwards, your job is to get me back to the TARDIS. Do you understand, Ace?"

"But I've no idea where the TARDIS is!"

"Do you understand me, Ace?"

"But…"

"ACE! Just say yes! Tell me you'll do it."

"Okay. Alright. Fine. Yes! I'll do it. I'll take you to the TARDIS, wherever the hell it is!"

Across the room, cloverkitty's eyes narrowed further. The shiny light had triggered an instinctual feline response. She crouched on her throne, facing the action fully, ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. Suddenly, a feeling of kinship arose within her. As one of the few beings in the universe with numerous lives, cats and Time Lords shared a common trait. And though Time Lords were never formally acknowledged in feline homes, in schools or in public, everycat knew they existed, through some collective feline intelligence. This a priori knowledge of Time Lords could be compared to her inability (despite valiant effort) to resist catnip.

At that particular moment, the Doctor's eyes locked onto hers. His body was flickering, but his gaze was steady. There was no doubt about it: he had chosen her. He closed his eyes, slowly, then opened them again. 

"He speaks feline," she marveled. She crossed the room in one leap, and approached the Doctor cautiously. His eyes trained on hers, he blinked slowly again, bidding her even closer.

She leaned over his face and inhaled, just as a plume of smoke escaped his open lips. Then his body flickered and faded to a hull of opaque grayness.

"Oh my god," said Ace, fighting back tears. "What have you done? What have you done to him?"

cloverkitty turned to face her. "I've captured the Doctor's essence. I think I can return it when you find this TARDIS he requested."

"You THINK you can return it? What kind of answer is that? That's not good enough!" shouted Ace.

Cloverkitty's smirk was evident, even to a human. "Hurry. I don't know how long we've got."

"How the hell am I supposed to find the TARDIS? I don't even know where I am, or who you are, or what's happened to the Professor!" 

"The next time we meet, it will all be much clearer," said cloverkitty. "For now, you must trust me, and you must find the TARDIS."  

 

Winner: cloverkitty