Nantucket News....

The Never Ending Quest - Episode 15427

"Er.....right," Leela blinks, obviously wondering for the fiftieth time what she's gotten herself into her.


A bit earlier (centuries, minutes, or days...depending on your measure of time).....

Lord Josh becomes hypnotised by the pulsing of the computer screen.

He has no knowledge of what the computer is doing to his body, which is basically precisely what the name says. In about five minutes Josh's body was systematically equalised with that of the on screen heroine. Gradually the pulsing of the light grew and grew. Suddenly it stopped and the screen read GAME OVER.

Lady Joshine turned off her computer and went to bed.

The Lady awakes......and starts when she finds herself tied and bound....naked to her bed!

"Mornin', Sunshine!" an incredibly cheerful voice chirps, "Feeling okay?"

Joshine turns her head to look at a grinning man dressed in jeans and jean jacket. Unbeknownst to her and her capture, they are about to recite some lines from a certain Stephen King's mini-epic TV movie.

"Wha....who are you?!" Lady Joshine shouts, "How dare you do this to a Lady of High Blood!"

"Pleased to meet you, Lloyd." the man smiles, "Hope you guess my name."

"What?" the naked lady blinks, suddenly nonplused by this odd man.

"Just a classical reference." the man giggles a giggle that would sound right at home coming from behind the bars of an insane asylum.

The giggling suddenly stops and the man's face grows utterly cold.

"They say that wisdom comes though knowledge," he says softly, as if speaking to himself, "Especially if one knows oneself. "I come from outside time," he continues, "I'm the king of nowhere....and I don't know myself......"

"At least until I met these three nice ladies living in a big tree!" he suddenly grins again. "They somehow came across the memories I'd lost over time after time. After each defeat and destruction....albeit a temporary thing for me....."

Joshine shudders when she sees that the man's teeth are VERY sharp pointed. She then blinks again when she look again and sees that they are utterly normal.....

But they HAD been pointed. She'd swear to it!

"I've gone by many names," he continues in a now friendly voice, "Merlin, Marlin, Marin Broadcloak....back when I was in an M mode. Back in a place called Israel I was called..... Legion. Still can't believe I got stuck in those pigs.....and was stupid enough afterwards to run off a cliff!

"Nowaday.....I'm just plain ol' Randall Flagg." the man smiles zanily, "Back with all his memories of all things. And ya' all know the ol' saw: 'Knowledge is power!'"

"And as for you," the man then comes up to her and places a hand on a breast. "You have something I want!"

"You....I'll scream!" Joshine shouts, fearing the utter worst.

"You mean like this?" Flagg smiles, suddenly breaking into ear splitting female screams that would do the most dewy eyed lady of a fairy tale justice.

"Nobody is around to hear you," the man smiles, "But frankly what I want right now is something that somebody named Josh had. You don't know about it and don't know how to use it anyway....not without practice. However, this one guy I know back at someplace called Game 3 would just love to get his hands on Author powers.....I...could just....loan him some of my 'juice'....but....that would.....leave too many clues to my clueless Bosses..."

Flagg looks over Joshine's prone form...and licks his lips....then shakes his head violently to clear it.

This Demon (for that is what Flagg is) is like many of his evil kin, a rather randy lot (and like to take woman and such....preferably against their will).

"Stop that!" he scolds himself, "Getting caught up right now at that will cost you again, like back during the 2,456th time.....

"Save it for dear, sweet Nadine Cross," he admonishes himself, mastering himself.

He then frowns. Nadine was going to soon come to Los Vegas....but for some reason whenever he senses the surrounding lands for those twerps who allied themselves with Abigail...there was this one annoying thing (despite having regained so much upon remembering).

"M-O-O-N." he mutters to himself, "That spells moon."

He then curses and makes a yanking motion.....and the world goes grew....then dark for Lady Joshine.

"Hmm, let's see if that little trick I learned from that one interesting mage......Tesla, works here and now," he mutters to himself, looking at the prone form, "Heck, maybe if it does I'll use that little party trick on this one knight turned belly dancer.....could be fun....."

Satisified with making certain adjustments to Matrixes permanent and irreversible, Flagg nods and smiles....then wills the clothing of Joshine to again form upon the naked and sleeping woman's unconscious form.

"Forget," Flagg intones the Word of Power, causing Joshine to forget the last five years of her life before now......

"Now where to put you?" Flagg thinks aloud to himself.

A literal lightbulb flashes above Flagg's head. After all, not only was what he was about to do to that one version of Nantucket going to be fun.....the energies released by that one TARDIS he'd found floating around space would do wonders in giving that one interesting dragon (real head on his scaley shoulders.....that one Minestus Flagg had talked with so long ago) the magical little 'extra' needed to jumpstart things and make it possible to actually enter that Red Pyramid dear old Tesla put it.....where his magic using rivals couldn't touch it.

In a reality with no magic in it.....!

Flagg fiddles with a mutli-color ultra-long scarf that he'd found on the control column of that TARDIS.....and......after causing the TARDIS to tear explode and push a large chunk of 20th century American real estate (and surrounding sea) back into the past (and then "sideways") he then pushes Joshine into an abandoned house......a bit later....in Nantucket.

And the magic flows and powers out over a world who'd been magically dead.....and out into an unsuspecting universe.....

Yes, Flagg is satisfied with the results (with the extra bonus of displacing yet another chunk of real estate....from the very last world the blue box had visited....right before it's occupant evaporated)...... Fun fun fun!!! And all not so flashy as to tip certain Ones off to his little tricks and playing....

But right now, there is this rather urgent business back in that one Earth. His Nadine was on her way! At last!

Soon afterwards (er.....if you have seen the TV movie or read the story "The Stand" you'll get what happened to Nadine to understand why she says before an elevator to her "love's" hotel room: We... are... dead... and... this... is... Hell!

But that....unpleasantry is not important to the here and now story here.....and now.


The Doctor

You know? I could get used to this! I think simply to myself, looking back and seeing how my friends (and dear Inquirer) handle potential problems.....letting me handle the tasks I had set off in doing instead of haring off, putting out yet another set of problems that my Companions just can't seem to be able to handle (besides...some of them.....running and screaming).

I then turn back, but find that Xoanon seems to be giving off some rather......frightened muttering. I can't make out most what he's saying and no manner of prodding or coaxing seems to work. However....what I do get....is a bit.....disturbing.

"We have gotten all we are going to get here," I sigh.

We soon seem to follow a similar path that my.....TV counterpart (a concept that still strikes me as bizarre at times) followed with Leela in examining the Barrier. Yes, it is a Time Barrier and everything inside it is just moved forward a few seconds in time. A true void, impervious to all forms of energy and such. Leela's (amazing girl....good brain in that head of her's) questions about how, if that's true, we hear the voice of Xoanon leads us to the very base of the Great Cliffs. Betty and Ragan smile when Leela's question brings us here.

I believe that they knew....but that small tidbit of information was left out in the brief synopsis of what happened on that TV series while on that trek through the jungle.

Well, we had been in a hurry back then and no matter what, their telling me about the Mordee expedition was invaluable in aiding me finding this planet. See, back in my reality I'd aided my version of the Expedition (and I'm rather inordinately happy to say that unlike my...er......that other Doctor I remembered to wipe the core of my personality).

Thankfully, I happen to know through the Melcit Theorem that the personality the other Doctor left in Xoanon is compatible with my own. One wouldn't think it, seeing that the chap is.....or would have supposedly been a future incarnation of me. However, despite how different some of my previous selves had seemed.....as much as it sometimes irks me.....all of those aspects of their personality of previous incarnations go into in some way at creating the new incarnation.

If nothing else, I spoke with Sigin privately awhile ago and he assures me if I do go insane....he can use his magic to heal my mind.

Dragons, I'm told, are rather good at that particular brand of healing magic.

I pause, noting the fact that the faces carved into the cliff aren't perfect. Then again, what is perfect in this imperfect universe?

"So how do we get in?" Leela asks, "Up the nose?"

Betty and Ragan break into laughter at that one as I explain it's through the mouth of the Fourth Doctor.

That said, it's a rather easy climb, but when we get to the top, we discovering a Tesh guard gaping out the back of the cave.....looking at the strange landscape that just popped into existence.

After tending to the Tesh's stabbing wound caused by Leela's thrown knife, we soon see just why that now unconscious guard was looking!

  1. "Nantucket?!" the Doctor blinks, recognizing the town behind the spaceship in the distance.

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3/2/2001 10:09:16 AM

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