Wednesday, December 2, 2009

8th Doctor - Zagreus (iii)

Part Three - Waistband


Charley awakens to find herself in a rainswept wasteland outside a huge domed building with a silver water fountain, and immediately assumes that she's died and gone to hell. Loitering outside are the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors who brood that they are in an entirely different kind of hell: Wales.

For want of something to do, they wander over to the BBC Wales television centre and try to sneak in and steal some food from the canteen.

Receiving an invite to dinner by the Architect of all Gallifrey, Romana, Leela and K9 transmat to Rassilon's tomb but instead arrive in what looks like a grotty 20th century bedsit. Despite K9's warning at the high amount of Doctor Who merchandise in the room, Romana decides to check out the fridge and see if there's anything to eat.

There, Romana and Leela find the post-it notes detailing the horrible true history of Gallifrey, and they are shocked when the real Nicholas Briggs arrives and uses the meccano set to take over Leela and Romana and make them fight to the death for his own kinky amusement.

At that moment, Charley and the three Doctors arrive, discovering that BBC Wales is just a cardboard box containing Briggsy's flat, albeit blocked with ridiculously easy challenges and death traps ripped off other anniversary specials.

The Fifth Doctor realizes TARDIS has been brought into the virtual reality of the Matrix, which is bent to the will of Nicholas Briggs, and the Seventh Doctor pretends he knew all that before because he's Time's Champion and all round cleverdick. The Sixth Doctor points out that this is fucking obvious - since they are just holograms, how could they exist outside VR in the first place?

Charley smashes a bottle of ginger beer over Leela's head and Nicholas Briggs flees for his life. The gang have a bit of banter for a minute or so and agree to locate the only real Doctor available - the Eighth one - and get him to sort this out.

AND attempt to find out just why some sad loser has created an entire universe based on his favorite TV show.

In Nick Brigg's bedroom, the Eighth Doctor/Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass has been tied to the bed and the evil Briggs has been masterminding a Web of Time to prevent other science fiction fans from altering his mindnumbing canonicity.

Nick Briggs offers to take the anti-time infection from the Time Lord, giving Nick Briggs the power to rewrite the history of this entire cosmos with all that tedious mucking about with the causal nexus.

The other Doctors arrive and the truth is finally revealed!

Nicholas Briggs is a Doctor Who fan who loved the show so much he wanted to BE the central character and went to desperate lengths to do so: making his own fan audios, attempting to take over a CD company making much better fan audios, and blackmailing the DWM comic strip for a few months.

Now, a new series of Doctor Who is finally being made and Briggs doesn't have a budgie in a microwave's chance of being cast as the Doctor. So, creating a probability generator from some plans he found on wikipedia, Briggs triggered the creation of an entire universe that mirrored the fictional universe of Doctor Who. Briggs ensured that the primal foundations of this existence created Gallifrey, the Time Lords, the Dustbins and the Cybermen.

Since then, Briggs has adopted the guise of 'Rassilon' and manipulated and stalked Theta Sigma, making sure that he fled Gallifrey in a TARDIS, that the TARDIS became stuck as a police box, that he would have countless human companions and regenerate seven times. Apparently, this universe is a warped, kinkier and filthier version of the show Briggs loves, but it's pretty damned close and indeed, makes a lot more sense on some occasions.

Now, Briggs has linked the two universes together. Whatever is written and produced in the real universe is played out in the false one, and Briggs intends to use the false one to change what is written and produced in the real one.

Now the Eighth Doctor possesses the anti-time power, he must use it to change all of reality, unwriting time until Briggs is the one and only Doctor there has ever been for all eternity, and thus the Welsh TV revival MUST feature Briggs as the Doctor.

Time is running out - RTD's revival has already broken into the universe twice in the last story... how long before all of continuity collapses and the Doctor regenerates into some tosser who hangs around with women called Rose Tyler?

The other Doctors protest that THEY all had to put up with their destinies being overwritten by the BBC. Why the fuck should the latest Doctor get off scott free?

Nick Briggs whips back some curtains to reveal a Stargate-type portal. It leads into a spare universe Briggs kept for emergencies - and by that I mean a COMPLETELY different universe, not just the ordinary one painted green but a fucking Lovecraftian realm - and he offers the Eighth Doctor a chance to live in there while the other incarnations are royally re-shafted. Of course, he'll never be able to return to his original home universe, but be honest: why would he want to?

The Doctor/Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass muses. Either he is stuck in this mediocre plotline for the rest of eternity or he gives supreme power to the clinically insane, bald, toothbrush-wielding nutter who created the universe.

"We're screwed," the Fifth Doctor sighs.

"Who can save us now?" Romana wails.

At this point, a figure in a leather trenchcoat, hat and carrying a cane strides in, accompanied by a pretty Welsh teenage girl.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," cries the Sixth Doctor. "It's the Valeyard!"

"So it is!" exclaims the Fifth. "Uh, who?"

"Fear not, Doctors," the Valeyard says. "I am on the side of good and I and my companion Ray here have returned to show the true the Doctor the goodness within, the goodness he is suppressing and must be acknowledged to save the multiverse!"

The Doctor/Zig-Zag-Gay-Ass stares at the newcomers for a minute.

"And the survey said... FUCK OFF!"

So saying, the behemoth cuts off the heads of the Valeyard and Ray, and laughs.

"Well, I don't know about you two," the Seventh Doctor confides. "But I'm fresh out of ideas."

Unfortunately, Nick Briggs has completely forgotten that the Eighth Doctor posts the mighty awesomeness of retroactive continuity. Summoning up all of his mighty temporal energies, the Doctor simply retcons him ever having those powers - it turns out everyone was mistaken and the Doctor was just in a bit of a schizo mood that day.

Nick Briggs desperately points out that all that energy had to go SOMEWHERE, and logically he must have got the retcon powers.

But he hasn't.

"Then who has?" demands Charley.

It is then they notice that her bastard child is now dressed in a frock coat, a college scarf and even more megalomaniacal than ever before. He has become THE RICHARD E GRANT DOCTOR!

In a mighty flash of lightning, the REG Doctor summons up a TARDIS tailor made to contain his ego, and also an android butler in the shape of the Bastard, and flies off into the great blue yonder for no particular reason.

There is an embarrassed silence.

Leela then headbutts Nicholas Briggs, who trips and falls into the Stargate, plunging screaming into a Divergent timeline to face whatever creatures live there.

The Doctor crosses to the TARDIS and kicks it until it starts humming properly and the three other Doctors fade away. Romana and Leela admit they were both a bit turned on with all that fight to the death stuff and they wander back to Gallifrey for an ongoing story arc of fanwank before the omniversal barriers break down and RTD's version of reality quietly replaces their own.

All Charley wants to do is put these traumatic events behind her and set off on another exciting adventure through space and time and get back on the game... but she's stunned when the Doctor tells her that this will not be possible.

It seems all the horrors she has faced in this adventure have finally broken through her denial and she realizes that the Doctor doesn't even remotely fancy her any more and actually finds her incredibly irritating with all her jolly hockey sticks and is a stale and boring companion. Even if she DOES do lap-dances for him.

Charley is even more shocked and horrified at what the Doctor has done to Nicholas Briggs - who knows what torture he is suffering, in a new and unfamiliar universe without Time Lords, Cybermen, Dustbins, companions or continuity.

The Doctor admits that actually, that sounds like a good deal, and decides to travel into the new universe since there's a chance he won't have to put up with Charley in this new realm.

Inside the TARDIS, as the Doctor prepares for his new life, he seems to hear the echoing voices of his past selves, bitching at him for not having thought of this sooner.

However, the Doctor is unaware that Charley is hiding nearby, waiting for the opportune moment to grope the Time Lord.

The Doctor is not going to get rid of his stalker THAT easily...

No comments: