Of Mice and Mayhem

Chapter Three

The Thing In The Corner cackled. Things were coming along nicely. Although those two mice were not part of the plan, they could not hurt it either. They were just mice, after all, right?

Then again… it thought. Its last attempt to manipulate them had worked… but those two were always a danger, while they were still around. They might… disrupt things. It needed something to distract them.

And then it noticed something in the other continuity…

“Oooh. That tickles.”

It vanished to the source.

“Ah. There you are…” Q said. “I’ve always said you can’t beat a good tickle.”

“What do you want?” the Thing asked grumpily. “Come on, come on, I’ve got plans to watch…”

Q smiled. “The same thing you want. The complete breakdown of fiction and reality… and the destruction of This Time Round.”

Back in This Time Round, Benny was swaying drunkenly. As she wavered to the left, she just managed to avoid the figure who flew through the door, almost horizontally, still clutching a drink in his hand.

He skidded to a halt and slowly picked himself up off the floor. “Last time I ask if the barman has monkey nuts…” he said to himself, looking round.

“Ooh, this looks like a nice place. Never been here before…”

Polly walked up to the newcomer with her clipboard, “And you are?”

The figure took a sip of his drink and looked up at her. “I’m Gordon, I’ve just been thrown out of my usual drinking establishment.” He scrabbled about in his pockets “I am allowed in here, you know,” he pulled out a scrappy computer printout, “See, I’m an author, I wrote a story about Benny!”

Polly looked at the bit of paper carefully, “Oh alright, then,” and walked away. Gordon felt something painful poking him in the bum. He moved slightly and picked up a small device from the floor, where his rapidly decelerating posterior had crushed it. He read the little label on it, “Author Avatar Incapacitator… wonder what it does, or rather did…”

The Thing smiled.

“I see. What do you propose?”

“It’s already started. It just needs a little… boost, shall we say?”

The laughter echoed into infinity…

Cameron stared in abject terror as the small mouse with the big head waved the copy of Divided Loyalties in his direction. Again.

“I don’t have the Incapacitator! honest. Please don’t make me read it. Pleeeeaaassseeee!!! I’ll do anything?!?!”

“Anything?” asked the mouse.

Cameron double-took as he realised what he had said, “Well, I say any…”

“Are you pondering what I’m pondering, Pinky?”

“But Brain, what if the Nimon don’t like Britney Spears?”

Brain fwapped Pinky. “That’s not what I meant…”

“YES!” exclaimed the mouse, with great enthusiasm. “We can send you back to the tawdry little drinking establishment to distract the customers while I search for the device! Your current resemblance to Adric will only add to the effect!”

“No!!! Don’t send me back there!" Cameron gibbered, his voice suddenly changing to a hushed whisper. “Nyssa’s there…”

“Enough! Begone, rubber-pyjama clad lookalike!”

As if by magic, Cameron disappeared…

Death looked about dejectedly. YOU KNOW, I COULD MURDER A CURRY.

Q walked around the Thing. “This Time Round is a paradigm shift gateway between what is real and what is not. It is only the bizarre writings of the authors that prevent the catharsis of dubious continuity from spreading throughout not just this multiverse, but all others.”

He stared straight into the Thing’s eyes, “Both you and I have set events into motion to disrupt the narrative causality of that little pocket pub dimension. Left alone, things would eventually snap back into some semblance of normality,” he smiled. “Or at least, whatever passes for normality there. But if we just give one or two little pushes in the wrong direction, the entire thread will tear itself apart, loosing the powers of certain people onto reality.”

“C’mon, get on with it,” the Thing grumped, “Who are you on about?”

Q stood back. “Those who have the power over all, those who worship retroactive continuity, their leader, Uncle Terrance, their name…” he threw his arms wide in an overly-dramatic gesture. “Fiction Paradocs!!!”

Just as Gordon finally dragged himself off up the floor, the Doctor, Fitz and Alryssa bundled through the door, sending him sprawling onto Benny’s table.

“Right, so what exactly do we have permission to do then, Doctor?” Alryssa asked.

“Well…”

The Doctor dove over the bar and began rummaging among the glasses. Francois woke up at the tinkling.

“Hey, I told you about the Guinness keg last time!”

The Doctor hushed him, blushing slightly.

“I’m looking for something… Here!”

The others crowded round the bar to see it. Imran couldn’t see, so extended his sensor.

“Ooo! Watch where you’re putting that thing!” yelped Izzy, flapping.

“Sorry…” he replied. If it was possible for a tin dog to blush, Imran did it.

Alryssa stared at the artefact.

“That’s what she gave you permission for?”

The Doctor sniffed.

“It’s very powerful. Really.”

He placed it on the bar for all to see…

As Gordon picked himself up, he looked at Benny, their eyes met, something almost electric passed between them…

…it was the malfunctioning Incapacitator. There was a flash of light, a bizarre whooping noise.

Benny looked down at herself.

“Oh…bugger!”

Gordon looked down at himself.

“Whose breasts are these?! Oh…bollocks! Or rather no bollocks…”

The Doctor looked round. “Oh no, as if we didn’t have enough to worry about. Now a This Time Round newbie, and the character he’s desperately (and somewhat sadly) in love with, have had their minds switched. What else could possibly happen?”

In the middle of the room, a strange, swirly orange thing appeared in a blaze of sound. From it came the most terrifying sound the customers of the Round had ever heard and from within the vortex emerged…

“I love you, you love me. Let’s sing this song eternally…”

It was debatable whether the chanting was more blood-chilling, or the foul, fetidly cheerful voice that led it. What’s more, they were all off-key.

The patrons shrieked in terror as the soul-destroying rhythm poured mindlessly from the depths of the strange orange swirly thing. And then, there was movement, as something vast and purple and seemingly coated with a saccharine slime stepped through, its squamous head and hooded eyes defying classification with any of the more conventional forms of life in our Universe.

Benny-in-Gordon’s-body screamed and pointed. “Ia! Shub-Barneyrath! The Purple Dinosaur of the Woods with a Thousand Young! The Great Old Purple One who dreams in the depths of Daytime-TV’lyeh!”

“That I did not expect,” said Q.

“I did,” the Thing from the Corner surlily replied.

“You did not. Liar.”

“Did, too. Stupidhead.”

“Did not, doofus.”

“Did, too, buttboy with a one-letter name.”

“Did not, git. And, at least I have a name, instead of a definite article, an impersonal pronoun, and a prepositional phrase.” Trump that, the semi-omnipotent being thought in a highly un-omnipotent and very petty manner.

“Oh, yeah, well, uh…” the Thing floundered weakly for a moment, then sneered. “At least I didn’t start out playing a dopey inventor on Days of Our Lives!”

“NEVER MENTION THE ‘EUGENE’ THING AGAIN!!” Q shrieked as he began pummelling the Thing about what might have been its head.

“Will you be my friends?” hissed Shub-Barneyrath at the cowering people around him. “Let’s play make-believe. I’m going to pretend that I have an army of Spamites…”

Before the horror-stricken eyes of the fearful pub-goers, a horde of pinkish, one-eyed, tentacle-armed creatures came shambling out of the orange swirly thing. A rancid, spicy odor overrode even the reek of Shub-Barneyrath as the beasts began to fill the room. “Build your own Cable Descrambler,” they growled. “Make money fast. Nieman-Marcus cookie recipe. Hot young coeds just 4-U!” Each Spamite added his own sibilant message to the clamor.

“Spamites!” Lucas Buck and Catbert cried out in horror from the corner booth. “I thought they were all dead!” Catbert shakily hissed, his fur standing up straight and his ears flat against his head.

At that moment, the door opened and Number One stumbled inside, female and walking on crutches, with a bandage swathed around one leg. “Buck! Catbert! The Spamites are back!” She blinked and stared at the horde of monsters in the middle of the room. “But, I guess y’all already know that, huh?” Shrugging, she turned and limped back out.

Just then, someone who looked like Adric but was actually Cameron appeared on the floor amidst the bestial Spamites. He looked up into the slavering, one-eyed faces around him and just shook his head. “Bloody typical,” he muttered.

“Let’s play a new game,” Shub-Barneyrath grunted. “Let’s play Devour the Souls of the Mortals!”

The Fifth Doctor sighed and put aside his teacup and the cricket scores he’d been reading and walked over to where Nyssa had been tied up to prevent her from committing manslaughter when she’d discovered the pub had run out of celery sticks to go with their spicy chicken wings. With Tegan’s help, he untied the bloodthirsty Trakenite, then slid a small gym bag over to her. Inside were several 9mm pistols, some grenades, an MP-5 machine pistol, a sawed-off shotgun, a pointed stick, a .44 Magnum, a Desert Eagle .50 caliber automatic, some lawn darts, Longinus’s Lance, that two-shot crossbow from the movie Ladyhawke, an Exocet missile, a Carcano rifle she’d picked up in Dallas at a school book depository, Excalibur, two bricks, and a change of panties.

“Yay! Carnage!” cheered Nyssa, her eyes glowing slightly as she snatched up a handful of weaponry.

“You take care of the Spamites,” the Doctor ordered, “while I deal with Shub-Barneyrath.”

“Okay!” the psychotic girl giggled happily, a gun in each hand, several more in her belt, and the pointed stick in a sheath on her thigh. “Yay! I get to show everyone my Chow Yun-Fat impersonation! Nifty carnage!”

Cameron looked at the hulking Spamites on his left. He looked at the deranged, gun-toting Nyssa on his right. With a heart-wrenching sigh, he sat down and bowed his head. “Why am I not surprised,” he mumbled to no one in particular. “I crukking give up…”

That was when the hurricane hit.

“Faster than a speeding poster! More powerful than Justin Richards! Able to leap deep plotholes in a single bound!”

“SMOKIN’!!!”

The green-faced lunatic stood in the middle of the ’Round, grinning insanely. A grin so insane that it made all who had gone before tremble. Nyssa took notes.

He dropped something.

“Ooof!! Cameron–” Izzy trailed off, as she looked around her. “This is getting really overused, but… Oh pants!!’

Death felt that familiar tugging sensation deep inside, and sighed. He gave the Brain a hopeful look, which, with his lack of anything but a skull for a face, was indistinguishable from every other look he ever gave. I THINK I’M ABOUT TO HAVE SOME WORK TO DO. I SUPPOSE THERE’S NO CHANCE OF YOU LETTING ME GO, IS THERE?

“Absolutely not,” Brain replied stiffly. “Your services will be required for the furtherance of my next great plan.”

Death shrugged. THOUGHT NOT. ANY CHANCE OF A CURRY, THEN…?

Meanwhile, in the Créche…

“Hey! How come Barney and Friends isn’t on today?”

<Allie?>

<Yeah?>

<Gotcha.>

Current events:

The Cameron-Mask has just arrived in the ’Round, dragging Izzy along with him.

Cameron-Adric has also just arrived in the ’Round, in order to distract its denizens. Unfortunately…

Shub-Barneyrath has also also just arrived in the ’Round, woken from its sleep in Daytime TV’yleh. And it’s intent on devouring all the mortal souls it can get its hands on, armed with its legion of Spamites.

Psycho Nyssa is about to demonstrate her Chow-Yun Fat impression on the Spamites.

The Fifth Doctor is about to tackle Shub-Barneyrath.

The Eighth Doctor, Fitz, Compassion, Alryssa-Compassion and Imran-K9 have just returned from the library with permission to do something-or-other…

The other continuity’s adults, a five year old Imran, a giant Brain (carrying Pinky), and one version of the Thing in the Corner are heading for the Créche.

In the Créche itself, Baby Alryssa and Baby Alryssa-Compassion are trying to merge back into the original Alryssa. With the Baby Eighth Doctor’s help.

Barney and Friends isn’t on (to the great acclaim of all those with taste).

Gordon and Benny Summerfield have switched bodies, thanks to the Author Avatar Incapacitator, which someone (with the initials LM) left on the floor of the ’Round (this being the detail Francois didn’t notice).

Nivet is searching for someone before everything stops.

Q and the other version of the Thing in the Corner are plotting the destruction of This Time Round, and the complete breakdown of reality. They just need to give one or two little pushes there…

…and the powers of those who worship retroactive continuity, Fiction Paradocs, will be unleashed on reality, breaking the boundaries of what’s real and what’s fictional.

Why is a question no-one’s answered.

In the meantime, Q and the Thing are having a slap-fest. Sooner or later, one of them is going to realise someone’s tried to bind them with a spell.

Doesn’t mean they can’t see what’s going on, though…

The other version of Pinky and the Brain have Death captive in order to further Brain’s great plan to rule This Time Round, using the Author Avatar Incapacitator and the Doctor’s biodata. Of course, Brain doesn’t know Gordon sat on the AAI…

<Imran?>

<Yeah, Allie?>

<We’re in deep doo-doo, aren’t we?>

<Yep.>

“Right… just let me get this calibrated…”

The Baby Eighth Doctor looked up. “If you two could just stand together…”

Baby Alryssa and Baby Alryssa-Compassion stood together. Neither of them was at all sure about this…

Especially since the Doctor was using what looked like a cannibalised Fisher-Price My First Camera…

“This is a cannibalised Fisher-Price My First Camera…” the Doctor said absently. “Not what I’d have worked with, but there you go…”

He aimed the camera at the two girls. “Say ‘Dalek cheese smells!’.”

“Dalek cheese smells!” the two Alryssas chorused.

There was a flash.

All hell broke loose.

The Alryssas screamed. The smoke filled the air. The Doctor toppled over backwards…

As the smoke cleared, he looked up to see a large figure looming over him.

HELLO?

“Jings Doctor!” cried Baby Jamie. “Look at yon big skellington!!!”

I’M NOT A SKELLIN…SKELETON!

“Aye you are, you cannae fool me, ya sassenach!”

I’M A…ER…MR JONES, THE MILD MANNERED JANITOR!

“Och, awa with ye, youse a skeleton!”

The Baby Eighth Doctor looked around the créche, “Hold on, where are the Alryssas?”

Baby Alryssa and Baby Alryssa-Compassion looked around the bizarre room they had found themselves in.

“Wires?” said Baby Alryssa.

“Multi-coloured plastic?” said Baby Alryssa-Compassion.

They looked at the big round window at the front of the room, only to be greeted by the sight of the créche, now extra-large size.

The two Alryssas looked at each other.

“Oh bugger!”

“He cannabalised the mini-scope, didn’t he?” cried Baby Alryssa.

Baby Alryssa-Compassion slumped in a heap on the floor. “Yep!”

They looked at each other again… “Bwaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!”

“Enough of this.”

An eerie stillness fell over the ’Round. Even the Spamites fell silent.

The Eighth Doctor stood up from behind the bar, holding something in his hands.

“By the permission granted me by the Author Mafia…”

He closed his eyes, and looked down. Then he looked up, eyes burning.

“…I claim the power of the Editor.”

All hell broke loose.

The thing in the Doctor’s hands glowed. It was a teacup. A regular, china teacup. But not an ordinary one, by all accounts.

Alryssa drew in her breath.

“Uh oh,” she muttered, “Whoever is responsible… look out… he’s pissed…”

“And when he gets angry… things start happening…” Sam followed up. The two looked at each other, before the light filled the room, and nobody could see anything anymore. When it faded, two figures were standing in the middle of the ’Round, blinking.

“Oh, bugger,” said Q.

“Oh bugger indeed,” said the Doctor, darkly.

“Oh bugger,” said Lawrence.

The Doctor glared at him.

“I should’ve known…” he mused. “Not content with messing with my biodata, you thought you’d rewrite everyone else’s and destroy this place as a side-effect. Well, guess what? I have in my hands the power to erase you both from existence as we know it.”

Q snorted in derision.

“Ha! You? Goody two-shoes? You don’t have the nerve!”

“I don’t?”

“Doctor, wait–”

“Quiet, Alryssa.”

The Doctor concentrated. He opened his hands, and suddenly the room was full of butterflies. Q flapped at them ineffectually.

“I can’t let you destroy this place. There are too many dreams here. Too many hopes, too much creativity. Too much beauty.”

“Too much sugar!” spat Q. “All this silliness is going nowhere! It needs to be destroyed before it kills itself on sweetness and light!”

Alryssa watched as the butterflies fluttered around them, and smiled. Compassion blinked as one landed on her nose.

The Doctor yelled back at Q, his blue eyes infernos.

“Let you take apart a place of joy and fun? Allow you to prevent freedom of choice and expression to the writers who create us and perpetuate our memory long after we’ve gone?”

His voice softened suddenly, but everyone could still hear him.

“I don’t think so. Not today. Not ever.”

Q and Lawrence screamed…

“Benton, put that away!” Benny (in Gordon’s body) shouted, “Your elephant impersonation wasn’t funny the first time…”

Q and Lawrence stopped screaming…

The Doctor scowled at Benton. “If I may continue?”

“In all my drinking in This Time Round, I have battled against boredom, against no-fun fan-fictioners. I should have drank beer. The maddest fan-fiction, deviant, degenerate and retconned to the core. Power-mad authors, fanwank, references, continuity, they’re still mind-numbingly boring compared to us. Ten million bytes of absolute power. That’s what it takes to be really corrupt.”

Gordon (in Benny’s body) suddenly grinned. “Actually, this isn’t so bad…”

Alryssa fwapped Gordon. “Get a hold of yourself…”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking of doing…”

Alryssa fwapped Gordon again.

“Ok, ok. I’ll try and figure out someway of reversing the switch. But first…” Gordon reached over to Benny and removed something from his coat pocket, “I’m going to shove this copy of Planet Of The Spiders right up Mad Larry’s arse!!!”

Lawrence’s face took on a look of abject, complete and horrific terror…

Q looked around wildly, actually worried for once, “Just one push in the right direction…” his gaze locked upon the Green-masked visage of Cameron. “Ah!”

“You’re too late Q. I’m the guy with two hearts, I’m the editor, I’m in control here, I AM THE DOC–”

“Green!” said Q. “Cameron has turned into a monster. He is green. You lose.” He smiled.

“What? No, it can’t be…”

GGGGGGWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNN!!!

Two hugely obese individuals appeared as if from nowhere. A chant of a thousand anoraks echoed around the room. “Gween! Gween! Gween is the cowor of munshtas!!!”

“Allow us to introduce ourselves, I am Cousin Walsh, this is Cousin Venables. We are Fa–”

“Oi, what about me?” said a small, thin figure from behind them.

“Oh yes…this is Cousin Towelling. He’s on work experience.”

The small figure waved. “Hiya!”

“Anyway, we are Fiction Paradocs, prepare to be retconned out of existence! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!”

Cameron-Adric raised a hand. “Umm… actually, we’ve got pink and purple monsters,” he pointed out, shying away from Shub-Barneyrath and the Spamites.

“And you guys have a seriously warped view of the colour green…” the Izzy on the ground said.

“Yeah. The Mask’s an anti-hero, not a monster,” the Izzy at the bar said. “What, you think the Hulk’s a monster?”

The members of Fiction Paradocs looked at each other. “Yes,” they all said.

The Izzys rolled their eyes. “That explains a lot…”

Meanwhile…

“Okay… huff… Okay… huff… Where’s Alryssa?” the five year old Imran panted, as they burst into the Créche.

Then he blinked.

A baby skeleton in a hooded robe, and a Nerf scythe, was pulling at the robe of the adult Death, and complaining about something which sounded suspiciously like “job demarcation”.

The Baby Eighth Doctor ahemmed. And pointed to the camera he was holding. “They’re… in here.”

Anji stormed over and picked up the little Doctor. “That’s it! I have had enough of this craziness! So how the cruk do you get them out?”

She paused. “Hold on… F– Crukcrukcrukcruk. Why can’t I say the F-word?”

“Fendahl?” Allie suggested, to be rewarded with a dark look from Anji.

“Basic law of Out-Of-Continuity,” the adult Eighth said. “No F-word.”

At that point…

…Lawrence Miles, along with a giant Brain (carrying Pinky) burst into the day care centre.

And stopped, when they saw the assembled adults and children already there.

Fitz double-took, then advanced on Lawrence. “I want a word with you…”

And leaped for him.

Nivet burst into the day care centre.

“You utter, utter… You stuck me in the Cold for 600 years, then you turned me into a member of the Faction, and then…”

The toddlers were cheering Fitz on as he proceeded to pound the living daylights out of Loz.

“Yes. Quickly…” Nivet panted. “We need you… now. Before it’s too late!”

The one he’d pointed to gawped.

“No! You can’t… I’m in the middle of… DAMN YOU!!”

Fitz protested as he was dragged off Loz, kicking and yelling.

And in the baby Eighth’s contraption, the two mini-Ryssas were banging on the walls.

“Hey! Did someone forget about us?”

“I think so,” mumbled the other, flopping to what seemed to be the floor.

Then, everything lurched, and the two tumbled around like clothes in a dryer.

“Hey! What’s…”

“Someone’s picked us up!”

“Best line I’ve heard all day. Shame about the context.”

The mini-AlryssaTARDIS snorted.

“What… huff… Oh… huff… Allie?… huff”

“What my out-of-breath writer is trying to say is… what do we need Fitz for?”

They were back on the road to the ’Round. With a good number of toddlers in tow (they’d wanted to see what had happened next.)

Compassion was currently carrying Mad Larry. Literally.

Pinky and the Brain had slipped into the chaotic crowd.

“Narrative Causality…” Nivet said. “The thread’s been pushed too far… Too much, in a short period of time, in a confined space… The ’Round’s about to go critical…”

“And… huff… Fitz?”

“He knows how to stop it.”

“I WHAT?!?!”

“You peeked. You peeked at the end of that book!” Nivet yelped, as Fitz glared at him. Fitz blinked.

“Oh… you mean… So that… Ah. OK… right. Um. I think.”

“Get on with it!” came the chorused reply.

“Er. Quite.”

They piled into the ’Round.

“Excuse me. I’ve got some Spamites to massacre…” Nyssa pointed out, hopefully.

“No.” Cousin Venables said. “You will be retconned… Now, how to do it? Make it a dream Imran’s having in the ’Round? Make it so that Lawrence’s plan never began? No… I think a good, old-fashioned War of the Daleks retcon will do…”

“You can’t beat the classics,” Cousin Walsh said.

The Eighth Doctor stepped forward.

“No. More. Retcons.” he said coldly, his voice coming from the chilly slopes of Hell. “I have had enough of having my life rewritten, and rewritten, and rewritten over and over again, simply to satisfy the needs of the plot of the month. My life is my own. So is my past. And you” – he pointed to Fiction Paradocs – “will never know just what parts of my past are and aren’t true.”

He smiled. “Especially since I no longer know anymore…

“You chose the wrong time, and the wrong place. Your time is gone. You have no power here. And as the Editor, what I say, goes.”

The denizens of the Round applauded.

“Umm… Doctor…” the Izzys said. “We’ve still got the stonking great purple thing and the Spam from Hell to deal with…”

The Mask-Cameron was… playing… with Loz. “Wedgie!!!”

The Doctor smiled, and gestured to his Fifth self. “I believe you had a plan?”

“Ah. Yes. That one?”

Compassion glanced at Alryssa. Alryssa looked at the Doctors.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked. Everyone turned to look at her. “What?!”

The Eighth brandished the Editor’s Pen.

“Here, my good man. If you would do the honours…”

and so I don’t get beaten to a pulp afterwards… he added silently.

Fifth stepped up to the huge floating book that had appeared in the middle of the ’Round, and began writing furiously.

“Doctor…” Nyssa hissed. “I get to take out the Spamites!”

The Fifth nodded furiously as he wrote. “Yes, I know. Change of plan. Since he’s tapped into the Editor… Withdrawal of sponsorship from Barney & Friends, originally… Now… Nyssa, get to work.”

The psychotic Trakenite grinned as she started doing what she did best…

Alryssa blinked.

“You know. I feel funny. Like I should be…” she trailed off. “Wait. NO… NO!”

“It’s the secret weapon we talked about the other night,” he offered.

“ARRRGGHH!! I… can’t… stop… myself…”

Everyone moved away from her like a wave.

“What on Ganymede is going on?” asked Imran.

“You’ll see,” sniggered Compassion.

“I’m going to kill you…”

White light filled the room.

“Gallifrey… starrrr… POWERR!!”

Imran headbutted the bar as best he could, hoping he could knock himself out. Nyssa blinked.

The light dissipated. Alryssa had… changed. She was wearing a Japanese schoolgirl outfit in purple and white. At least, what there was of it. She brandished a staff that bore the ancient representation of the Eye of Harmony.

Fiction Paradocs wailed.

“Bugger,” said Q.

The Eighth couldn’t stifle his grin.

“Now you’re all in trouble,” he said. “Meet Sailor Gallifrey.”

Compassion debated leaving for sanity’s sake…

Unfortunately, Alryssa still looked like Compassion. Which was enough to cause cognitive dissonance in Fiction Paradocs in itself.

They started dribbling.

Alryssa blinked. “Wow. That was easier than I thought. Now…” She turned to Shub-Barneyrath. “Now, sub-Cthulhoid monster! Taste the Infinity-Chambered Strike!! …what am I saying?!”

“Never…” Shub-Barneyrath hissed. “Daytime-TV’lyeh will rise… and there is nothing that can stop it…”

“Oh yeah?!” Alryssa said. “Taste the power of Anime, foul fiend!! …I will get you for this, Doctor…”

The Eighth and Fifth grinned.

“So…” murmured the Eighth, “Who gets the backlash for this one?”

“Speak for yourself,” muttered the Fifth. “I took the blame last time…”

“Think she’ll go for her regular approach?”

The Fifth considered.

“Considering what we just did to her… I think she might have something special for you tucked up her sleeve. Or what she has of one…”

“Wonder what the Council would make of this…”

Between them, Imran-K9, Cameron-Mask and Psycho Nyssa had managed to cut a swathe through the horde of Spamites. The unthinking creatures tried to advance over the bodies of their brethren.

“Uh uh.” Imran said. “Eat blaster, pit-spawn… Finally. I’ve always wanted to do this to a spammer…”

“Wedgie!!!”

“I’m worried about that boy…” Nyssa murmured.

She threw another morning star at a Spamite who was attempting to make an unsolicited sale of pumice stones to Sam. The Spamite dropped deader than his stones.

“Er… thanks.”

Nyssa smiled.

On the edge of the orange vortex…

“I shall arise once more…” Shub-Barneyrath hissed. “And I shall bring naught but sugar-sweet songs, and mind-numbing lessons, and empty acting, as this world bows before me…”

“NEVER!!” Alryssa yelled. “There’ll be drama, and fluffiness, and comedy, and dramatic complexity, and romance, just so long as I fight!!”

Energy crackled in the air around her. “Get gone, you horrible thing…”

“STAR ANIME NOVA!!!”

And when Alryssa’s burst of power faded, Shub-Barneyrath, and its horde of Spamites, were gone.

The Eighth looked mournfully down. “He’ll be back. You can never really destroy something like that…”

“Cheer up,” the Fifth said. “We’ve driven him back… this time.”

The Eighth nodded. “Now… Oh, of course. I should have realised. Two Izzys, two Camerons…”

Cameron-Adric shuffled.

“Two continuities…” the Eighth finished. He checked his pocket-watch. “The others should be here about… now!”

The other continuity burst in.

And there was much confusion.

In the confusion, Brain (the little one) popped into existence, snaffled one continuity’s Author Avatar Incapacitator, and popped back to his lab.

Death? Check.

Doctor’s biodata? Check.

AAI? Check.

Pinky? Unfortunately… Check.

Eventually…

“Right… Better see about getting you lot back to normal…” one of the Eighths said. He fiddled with the Author Avatar Incapacitator. “There. Should get you all back to normal… and without Q’s influence, it will work. Just needed a narratively plausible explanation…”

Then he examined the camera. “Ah. That’s what went wrong. A transdimensional netastasis…There, that should do it…” He handed it over to Alryssa. “You do the honours…”

Alryssa snapped a photo.

There was a flash.

And the original Alryssa appeared.

She looked at her other self. “Nice sense of fashion…”

“Get lost…” Alryssa-Compassion said. “Okay, Doctor… do it!”

One of the Sixths raised the AAI, and fired.

When the dust cleared…

…there were two identical Alryssas, two identical Imrans, Gordon and Benny were back in their original bodies, and there was one normal Cameron.

The other was still wearing the Mask.

“Gonna be hard to get it off him…” one Izzy observed.

Gordon looked down. “Ah. Bollocks.”

The Alryssas looked at each other. “Umm…”

The Eighth frowned. “You know, I think I’ve overlooked something…” He winced. “Ah. I was afraid of this. No. I will not keep it… Tempting, so tempting… Go. Before I fall…”

Alryssa glared at him.

“I hope what I thought I caught you thinking wasn’t what you were really thinking…”

Eighth blushed. Fourth snickered. Sam glared.

“Of course not.”

One of the Izzys raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know…” She smiled innocently at the Doctor. “Or do you want to explain the photos in your bedroom?”

The Eighth ducked another glare from Sam. “Now–” He paused. “How did you find out about them?”

Izzy looked at Alryssa, blushed, and mumbled, “Just looking for your X-Men collection…”

“I’ve told you about looking for those Romana pictures…” Eighth began.

Fourth blushed.

“Ahem.” Fifth said. “Could we stop this before it gets any more mutually embarrassing?”

And the Editor’s Pen was gone.

He looked at the others. “Did you ever believe I would keep it?”

Nivet reached the Doctor, Fitz in tow. “Doctor… must tell you…”

The Doctor turned. “Yes, Nivet?”

This Time Round rumbled.

“This Time Round’s about to tear itself apart.” Nivet said. “And take us with it…”

Everyone grabbed hold of anything stable to prevent themselves falling over. Cameron grabbed something soft.

“Hey!”

“Er, sorry, Izzy…”

Nivet shoved Fitz towards the bar.

“You know what it is, Fitz!”

Fitz wobbled, as the floor heaved in waves. Eighth looked at Fitz.

“What?”

“That!” Fitz yelled above the noise, pointing behind the bar. “When did that appear?”

Everyone looked behind the bar. There was nothing untoward… the glasses, the drink bottles, the large Louis XIV mirror…

The Louis XIV mirror?!

“Break it!” yelled Fitz. “Break it now!”

Before the Eighth could scramble over the bar, the ’Round lurched. Everyone slid to one side.

“Argh! It’s like being in the TARDIS again!” shouted Nyssa, as she held onto a pillar.

“EXACTLY!” yelled the Fourth. “Fiction Paradocs was trying to merge their TARDIS with the ’Round! The vortex winds will tear the ’Round apart!”

“I think that was the idea!” answered Eighth, scrabbling for a purchase on the slanting floor. He climbed over the bar, and picked up a bottle that was still intact. “I hate to waste a good vintage, but…”

He threw the bottle at the mirror, and ducked to avoid the flying shards. As the mirror shattered, he could have sworn he heard screaming…

Slowly, the rumbling ceased. Everyone sat up and looked around at the debris. The two Alryssas had became one, Imran found himself on his hands (hands! Joy!) and knees (Double joy!), and Cameron found himself no longer wearing pyjamas or a green mask.

Alryssa looked at Cameron and blushed.

Cameron looked down. He was no longer wearing pyjamas, a mask, or anything else for that matter.

Fitz looked smug, and with good reason.

“Don’t look so smug, yours isn’t much bigger…” Compassion said, rather too loudly for Fitz’s comfort.

Imran looked at Alryssa, and blinked. Rapidly. Somehow, she’d managed to stay in her Sailor Gallifrey outfit…

“Just a few loose ends to tie up, don’t you think?”

“Just a few?!” Alryssa replied, looking at the Eighth, as if to say, “I haven’t forgotten that…”

I EXPECT THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO SAY, LOOK OUT.

“Look… Argh!”

Everyone ducked…

A giant seagull with a ten foot wingspan smashed through one of the windows. It turned swiftly, whilst dropping a quick load on Lawrence Miles’ head. It came to a stop in front of the ducked masses.

The Seventh Doctor started peeing over the table he hid behind.

“I do hope that was just a typo!” said Sailor Gallifrey. “Otherwise, someone is in trouble…”

The seagull looked the Eighth Doctor straight in the eye. “Hi, I’m Philip Seagull. I’ve just bought up all the rights to this Round Robin and you are all currently violating my copyright!”

Gordon wandered up next to the Fifth Doctor. “There’s a way out of this, if you could just write something in that book…” He whispered something into the Doctor’s ear.

“Oh dear, I don’t think I can really do that, you know.”

“Would you like me to tell Psycho Nyssa about the cameras in her and Tegan’s rooms? I know you wouldn’t even think about using them for dubious purposes, but I’m sure Nyssa would think otherwise…” he grinned.

“Oh, alright then.” The Fifth Doctor turned and scribbled something into the book. Which, oddly enough, hadn’t vanished with the pen…

Of course, this meant the Doctor had to use his own pen…

Gordon walked in front of Seagull. Right, he thought, If it can work for Alryssa, it can work for me.

“Marinus! Star! Poweeeeeeeeerrrrrrer!!!!!!!!”

A flash of light, a whoosh of blue flames, a squirgle of white noise…

In front of Seagull now stood a six foot Voord in a Japanese schoolgirl’s uniform. It looked down. “Bugger…” It managed to scowl at the Fifth Doctor despite having a rubber helmet on. “I’ll deal with you later…”

The Fifth winced. “Oops. We really should have kept the Editor’s Pen…”

Sailor Marinus turned back toward Seagull and started making hand gestures.

“Burning Acid Sea Att…erk?!?!”

The effect was somewhat spoiled as Sailor Marinus tripped over his own flippers, crashed headlong through a door, turned into a cardboard cut-out and rapidly bundled his way down the stone stairs leading to the This Time Round wine cellar.

“We have a wine cellar?!?!” exclaimed Benny, far too enthusiastically.

Francois looped a shepard’s crook around her neck to stop her traipsing off. “Oh no you don’t. Not after the incident with the bouncy castle…”

Seagull looked at the book, and with a swift peck, skewered it on the end of his beak. “We’ll have none of that. I’m the only one allowed to change facts and reference continuity now!”

“Just say the word,” said Nyssa, “I’ll bite his head off…”

Imran and Cameron slowly worked their way behind Seagull. “Right,” Imran whispered, “I’ve got Gordon’s copy of Planet Of The Spiders. I’ll whack him on the back of the head with it, while you hit him with that copy of Divided Loyalties you were using to cover your modesty…”

“Can I at least keep a few pages? I don’t want to scare anyone…”

Fitz popped up from behind a table, with Lawrence Miles in a headlock.

“I could throw Mad Larry at him?”

“Good idea.” Imran started to make surreptitious hand gestures to those in front of Seagull in a vain attempt to explain what they were going to do.

Alryssa frowned “He’s going to what?!?!”

“There we are me old flower. I won’t hurt you.”

“EH?!?!” cried Gordon as he woke up. “You’d have to chloroform me first!”

As he looked up he realised: one, he was back to normal, and two, the man in the polo neck jumper wasn’t talking to him, but to a biscuit tin with an alarm clock, three sticks of dynamite and a detonator gaffer-taped onto it.

“Captain Fallon, UNIT SB division.”

“SB?”

“Silly buggers. We get called out when you lot are playing it…”

He turned his attention toward the biscuit tin.

“Look at this, what a pitiful little bomb… Would you like a biscuit?”

“Erm, not at the moment, no.” Gordon said woozily.

“I can’t stand enthusiastic amateurs.”

“This is the last place you want to be then, mate…” he managed, before passing out in a heap on the floor.

The polo-necked man looked down at Gordon’s prone form. He tried to resist, but it was impossible. He pulled a large, permanent marker pen out of his pocket and wrote “Kick Me!” on his forehead.

Then he finished the dematerialisation circuit he was working on, and stuck it on the bomb…

As Seagull necked down a couple of dead Spamites, Alryssa whispered to as many people as she could, what Imran and Cameron were planning. Or at least, what she thought they were planning. Cameron could only signal with one hand while keeping the copy of Divided Loyalties in place, so some of his gestures had been a bit unclear.

“Alrighty then,” said Alryssa “On the count of three…”

IT’LL NEVER WORK, YOU KNOW!

“One!”

“But, Alryssa? Where are we going to get a pair of Malcolm Terris’ underpants at this time of night?” asked Pinky.

Seagull looked up, suddenly aware that something was going on.

“Two!”

Seagull’s eyes began to glow a virulent green.

“THREE!!!”

<SSHHHHHWWWWOOOOOOOSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHH!!!>

Ooo-eeee--oooooooooooooooooooo--eeeeeee-ooooooooooo

WHACK!!

Imran hit Seagull over the head.

Unfortunately, thanks to Alryssa’s understandable confusion, everyone else hit Cameron on the head.

Which meant he was safely unconscious when Seagull’s beams passed overhead.

Seagull turned to face Imran.

Imran gulped.

At that point, Allie shoved the E-Space Boxed Trilogy up Seagull’s butt.

Or tried to.

Unfortunately, she missed. But as Seagull turned…

…the bomb in the Round’s wine cellar dematerialised.

And reappeared, thanks to its Randomiser circuit, inside Seagull.

“Everybody down!!” Imran screamed, diving behind the bar.

The bomb went off.

And, suddenly, there were chunks of seagull everywhere…

“Ew,” Imran said.

“Seconded,” Alryssa said.

Imran sank down behind the bar. “Thank God that’s out of the way.”

WELL, ACTUALLY… THERE’S JUST ONE LITTLE THING…

“Greetings.”

Imran peered over the edge of the bar.

Brain was standing on a still-upright table.

And from the expression on Death’s features, it was obvious who’d lifted him on there.

Then, Imran noticed the device Brain was holding.

Cameron, Alryssa, Gordon, Benny and Imran started beating their heads against the nearest hard surface.

Brain was wielding the AAI. However…

…there was a cartridge containing a golden fluid attached to it.

“Hello. Now… what was it… Oh yes. Surrender This Time Round to me, otherwise I blast the authors.”

“And…?” the Doctor asked.

Brain smiled. “Your biodata, Doctor, is very interesting. With my… associate’s help,” he gestured to Death, who looked unhappy. “I have been able to map out each and every link to your writers – every story you’ve ever had written. When I fire this at an author, their biodata will be altered. They will never have written for you… and no-one will have taken their place. They will no longer care about you… and you will have had no writers. You will never have existed.”

“You bastard…” Imran hissed.

Brain waved it away. “Compliments, compliments… So. Surrender.”

Imran stood up. “No. This stops now. You won’t take this away from us. No matter what you try, you will never kill him…”

“And what can you do to stop me?” Brain asked. “You, after all, are an author… and vulnerable to the AAI…”

Allie stood next to him. “But I am not…”

“So?” Brain said. “One move, he gets blasted… and you never inspired him. No false moves, please…” he added, pointing the AAI at Alryssa.

“Alisande…”

<Allie?>

<Imran?>

<Sorry.>

<Imran?>

<Allie?>

<Sorry.>

Alryssa blinked. And ducked behind the bar.

“This ends,” the altered voice said. “Hmm… I wonder what mouse tastes like…”

The silver-grey cat stalked towards Brain. Who started looking panicky.

“Get her… him… them… whatever…”

NO CAN DO, Death replied, pulling out two hourglasses from his robe and examining them. NOT THEIR TIME YET, I’M AFRAID.

“Right…” Brain raised a trembling arm. “Prepare to mutually cease to–”

GULP

The silver-grey cat licked its whiskers. Then grimaced. “EEEUUUWWWW!!! That was disgusting…” Its voice changed pitch, becoming higher, more… female.

Allie’s voice.

“I did apologise…”

Then Imran’s.

“I didn’t know that’s what you were apologising for…”

BURP

Brain looked around him. “Where am I? What happened? The last thing I remember…” His voice trailed off, as he saw the small skeletal rat in a hooded robe.

SQUEAK.

“What… do we do… now?”

SQUEAK.

Which meant: “The same thing we do every night, Brain. Try to take over the Afterlife!!”

Brain patted the Death of Rats on the shoulder. “I like the way you think…”

“Narf.” Pinky said. “Poor Brain.” He looked up at Death. “Oh well… You don’t know where I could get a curry, do you?”

Death smiled. Of course, he couldn’t do anything else. I KNOW THIS NICE LITTLE PLACE…

“Narf.”

“Well, all's well that ends well…”