by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk) Dr Who is copyright BBC. Zena is copyright to someone or other. Tyler Dion is the proprietor of the This Time Round. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Is there a problem?" "Not exactly," the berobed skeleton replied, fingering the punch card. "I was wondering if this constitutes one, or fifty." "Fifty?" exclaimed Adric. He did a quick count of the various implements of demise protruding from his body. "Thirty?" he inquired hopefully. "Hmmm? Forty?" "Thirty five?" The skeleton eyed the much abused body. "Thirty eight?" it essayed. "Thirty six?" "Done!" The punch card was duly punched and handed back. "Ah? I thought this time it was going to be one of your *sure fire* schemes for avoiding your persecutor? You don't seem to have done particularly well, if You don't mind me saying? If it's not an impertinent question...What went wrong?" "It was like this..." Adric began. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The festivities were in full swing at the This Time Round. It was a "special" Masquerade Night, and the regulars were having a high old time. The Fifth Doctor stepped out of the jumping tavern and loitered on the steps. He was hoping to catch Adric before he tried to go in. Rassilon knows! he was up for a lark with the best of them; but this latest prank was going too far. He was going to warn the boy. Adric came strolling across the TARDIS park, quite unconcerned. Admiring the boy's courage, the Doctor moved to head him off. "Adric?" The Doctor was impressed - the boy had a phenomenal turn of speed. "It's alright, Adric," the Doctor assured him. "Nyssa's inside, enjoying the party. You can come out from behind that TARDIS." Adric stuck his head out and peered all around. Satisfied that he was in no danger, he stepped out. "Well?" I have come to warn you. I think they've gone too far this time." "That's very kind of you, Doctor - but there's no need, really. I Have A Plan." "A plan?" "Yes. A foolproof plan to enable me to enjoy an evening out at the pub without any risk at all of being killed." The Doctor looked distinctly doubtful. "No risk at all?" Adric smiled up at him. "It's alright, Doctor. I fixed the invitations to the Masquerade so that everyone will be coming as an Adric look-alike. I'll blend right in. And if that homicidal hellion turns up, I stand at least a one in fifty chance of not being killed." The boy grinned smugly at him and strolled nonchalantly on to the doors. "Adric? Wait!" the Doctor called after him. "I think you should know..." But Adric only waved a dismissive hand and strolled on to the doors. The Doctor shrugged. He addressed the tall, robed skeleton waiting patiently by the TARDIS. "I tried to warn him. Oh well! He'll find out for himself..." Adric opened the door. A great wave of music and laughter swelled into the night. A big smile settled on his face - he was going to enjoy himself tonight. He stepped inside. "Hi Gang! I'm?..." Fifty Nyssa look-alikes, got up like Zena Warrior Princesses, turned in his direction. "KILL!" they screamed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The end. Post Scriptum Actually, you don't have it QUITE right. What happened was this... Adric got the disguise projectors, and the invitations, as a job lot from Emberella's Fantastic Fancy Dress Emporium. They were the kind that you impress psychically. So the little creep duly "imprinted" himself on the disguises, and sent them out. On receiving hers, Nyssa (naturally) tried it on. And also, (Naturally) upon looking in the mirror, flew into a psychotic rage at sight of her victim taunting her with his face. Her rage was such that her psychic aura over-wrote that of the little creep, incidentally, over writing all the others in the "lot"" at the same time, which was much more to her liking. Unfortunately, the disguises remain "tuned" to the life aura of the hirer, in this case Adric. Had, of course, the creep survived to midnight, as was his intention, there is another little "foible" that these disguises display. Adric was determined to be on hand to enjoy his revenge when the disgui...But I digress... Alas, the little creep fell victim to his own cleverness before the midnight hour when the premises of Emberella's Fantastic Fancy Dress Emporium displays a distressing tendency to fold up, emit puffs of pink smoke and revert to a polka dotted melon. Whereupon, a troop of white mice appear riding on the backs of dolphins, dismount and enter the melon through a small mouse sized door. A moment later, with a wheezing and groaning very reminiscent of something familiar, and a quick burst of Bach's Stacatta and Fuge in D Minor, the melon vanishes. At this exact moment, the period of hire expires, payment falls due, and all the disguises "revert" to passive mode, leaving the wearers...Ahem, but once more I digress. What actually happened was that the little creep was killed. The sudden shock of this, combined with the fact that the This Time Round is outside normal continuiuuiuiuiinity caused the temporally unstable dimensional fields to "snap" their wearers out of the TTR universe and into another. "...And I put it to you M'Lud that the astonishment of suddenly coming upon a really wild party in full swing in the middle of Croydon High Street at midnight with every single guest a well known television character and every single one of them "stark bollick naked" to use my client's own somewhat graphic words, was what caused him to swerve and drive his JCB into the branch of Bringley and Badfords Building Society. It was of course, only the most unfortunate coincidence that the Night Deposit Safe fell into the bucket; and at the same time the wild party vanished, just as the Local Constabulary (a fine body of men) arrived..." Meanwhile, somewhere in the void, between what is, what was, what might have been and what will be, a rocking, rolling hip hopping bunch of famous and not so famous tv characters parties on flipping through realities like the ghostly images of a terminally ill television before it gives up the ghost entirely. This is actually what happened. -- Cheers Clive http://www.cj4386.demon.co.uk/index.htm