A Journey Across

Book 1 - A Journey Across

Chapter 5 - Losing Battle

The darkness was comforting. Noone screamed or did anything stupid. No noise. No problems. No time. But it was inching away. The doctor tried to hold it like a blanket pulled away suddenly. He wanted to keep sleeping. Keep the problems away.

"Doctor! Wake up you useless...", yelled Rose. She had tried to wake him for an hour now without any success, "I need you doctor. Please wake up." Her voice became higher, almost crying.

No, ignore it, thought the doctor, it is not important. Another voice in his head answered, that it was important, but he ignored it. The sleep was so comforting. Sleep? As parts of him woke up, he realised that he wasn't sleeping. He was unconcious and in process to wake up. Panic pulsed through him as he remembered. Something must have went wrong. He heard the slow breathing of the tardis. What he thought was darkness, where his closed eyes.

"Oh god! Why is everything going wrong today?", sobbed Rose as she searched for something to wake the doctor up. Under the main room, she found a bucket full of water. Not fresh cold water, but it would do the job.

The doctor heard Rose. Gears in his head started to turn. He needed a good line when waking up. But his head was like vacuum. Not a single good idea. Before he could think of anything more, a bucket of warm, stinking water was emptied on his head. Time to wake up.

The doctor gasped for air, "hey! This was rude! I was just thinking of what to say when I wake up and now you come around and interrupt me!"

"Well, 'sorry', but I was worried. The TARDIS seems to die," Rose countered as she walked to the console. She know the controls well, not as good as the doctor, but well, "We have landed somewhere strange, I can tell you that."

"How can you tell?"

Rose switched on one of the monitors and showed the doctor, "the outside looks like a cartoon. And if you didn't notice, you look like one too," she pulled up her make-up mirror and held it in front of the doctor's face.

"Oh god, " - he stood up quickly and looked Rose in the eyes - "I look soo handsome. I quite like this universe." He ran to the consoles and stared at the controls, "This is so awesome."

But then he noticed what was strange, "No power?" He flicked some switches and tried to turn on more monitors, "Okay, we are on reserve power. Rose. I need you to do me a favor."

"Yes, what?"

He turned to Rose, "You need to go in the back, follow the third corridor. It is the twentysixth door on the right. Go in. You will see a big red button labeled "Do not press". Press it. Okay?"

His companion looked quite annoyed, facing such a trivial task, well, trivial for a companion. She walked towards the back, "You need anything more? Should I go shopping on the way? Bring some food maybe?"

"Naah, I'm fine thanks," he responded. When Rose had left he quickly moved over to one of the observation monitors and switched on one of the cameras outside. The monitor displayed the outskirts of a thick forest and a small farm of some sort. Various animals peacefully grazed in their pens. When the doctor heard the machines spinning up, as power was restored, he disabled the monitor and prepared the TARDIS.

When Rose came back, the doctor was busy handling the TARDIS. "Everything okay with the TARDIS?", she asked.

He turned around and his face told her before he said it, "No. The TARDIS took some damage in the travel. We can only travel short distances, a few hundred kilometers and all devices used for timetravel have been permanently destroyed. We will not be able to get back, even if the TARDIS heals." The sad look when Rose realized what this would mean for the doctor. No time travels anymore. No fun adventures or saving entire civilizations. He had been cut back to a normal person. The only things that was still different and made him special, were his second heart and the ability to regenerate. The timelord, that called himself the Doctor, sat down, short of beginning to sob.

A loud knocking was heard on the doors of the TARDIS. Startled, Rose whirled around, "What was that?"

"I think someone wants to talk to us. Would you be so kindly and open the door, my dear?" the doctor was back to his old self. His companion looked annoyed again.

Rose walked up to the door and laid her hand on the knob. Another knocking. She looked back to the doctor, who noded to reensure her, and opened the door.

A small pink pony stood there, "Hello, Rose. I'm Pinkie Pie. Can I talk to the doctor?"

Chrysalis shuddered as she walked in a clearing of the Everfree forest. She had taken a quick stroll to get away from her daily duties, building up an army for revenge. But now the forest seemed to have changed around her. The comforting twilight vanished and was replaced by an all-consuming darkness. The path was still lit but there were not soft shadows anymore. Every shadow turned into a monster, lurking in the corner of her vision to jump out and kill her. What had been left of friendlyness in the forest had been grinded of.

The queen of the changelings heard the rustling of someone walking over leaves and branches. She turned around to see who it was, but the path laid empty before her. She relaxed. Just my imagination, she thought.

No second later she felt the hot breathing of a living thing on her back. This was real. Startled she almost jumped a few meters. Whirling around she now saw the most horrible face ever to be seen.

The creature looked like a pony at first glance. But if you took your time you would notice how his form wasn't quite here. Like an unfocused image it blurred slightly around the edges. Most horrible was the face. Instead of a muzzle it had a mouth, reaching from one ear to the other. It was filled with two rows of sharp triangular teeth. Each one was blinding white. As it opened it's mouth, spit was drooling down. Behind the teeth laid a split tongue, almost like the tongue of a snake, but it was black instead.

This monster didn't attack but talked to Chrysalis, "well, well. Let's see who we have here. " - the movement of his mouth didn't match his speech - "A queeeen. And even better. You have an aaaarrmmyy. Tell me Chrysi. Do you want to live?" He stood motionless, awaiting an answer.

Chrysalis was shocked and took a few moments to gather herself, "W... What are you?" She stumbled back.

"If you reaallyy want to know. I am Entropy, the goohd of eeeeevviiil. And you, my dear queen, look like a nice first meal. I had been sleeping for soooo looong," it spoke. Chrysalis paniced at what she had heard, she beliefed him. She turned around and ran.

The thing, that called itself Entropy, didn't follow her. She screamed out for her guards but noone heard her. When she came around a sharp turn, there he stood. Blood was now dripping of his mouth.

"You know, I wanted yoouuu for my first meeal. But I took your armyyy instead. You will be a good desert and stop moving," the mouth of Entropy opened and Chrysalis knew, this would be her last moment. In panic she sent out a cry of help with her magic. The message was sent to a specific recipient, from whom Chrysalis believed to be able to stop whatever this was. She saw the creature jumping towards her.

Entropy did not kill Chrysalis instantly. He liked playing with his food.