"Enemy of the Universe" - Part One

Part One

So far away, longing for home,
will this journey ever end?
This setting we’re in should bring peace,
and yet my heart still longs for the place.
The place I call “home.”
So many memories, burning in me,
will this journey ever end?

            BONK!

            Wirt’s concentration on the ocean was broken as soon as the beach ball Greg and Toby were playing with bonked him on the head. It didn’t hurt, obviously. It was only a beach ball lighter than air. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t irritated, having his peace disrupted. The most perfect soliloquy formulated in his mind and now the words faded like breath on glass.

            “Hey, Wirt,” he heard Greg address him in his enthusiastic way. “Wanna play?”

            Wirt turned to see his younger half-brother standing nearby with the newest member of their party, Toby – a girl not much older than Wirt who once traveled with their Time Lord hostess, Neas (or “Lindsay,” as they better knew her in her current body). Traveling with such beautiful girls should’ve unnerved Wirt, being as socially awkward as he was around such enigmatic beings; he tried not to think too much about it.

            “N-No thanks, Greg,” Wirt responded to the invitation.

            “What’s up with you, dude?” Toby asked him. “You look downer than usual.”

            Wirt sighed, not wishing to ruin everyone’s good time with his dour mood. “I just miss home, that’s all. I mean, Greg and I have been away for what feels like an eternity. I think…” He didn’t want to say what he had to next, but he braved himself to say it. “I think it’s time for us to go back.”

            “You wanna go back home?!” Greg gasped. “But we can’t go back! We’re having too much fun! We’re still adventuring!”

            Wirt – ever the realist – contended with his half-brother, “I wasn’t meant for adventure, Greg. I have a life of solitude to live as an outcast to society.”

            Toby cringed at his words. She leaned in close to Greg and whispered, “Is he always this overdramatic?”

            “Did someone mention me?”

            The three youths jumped in reaction to the voice that spoke near them. Through their entire exchange, they failed to notice Lindsay lying on the sand in nothing but a bathing suit and sunglasses that she temporarily removed to gawk at her three companions.

            “How long have you been there?” Toby asked her. “We didn’t even know you were there!”

            Lindsay sat up with sand grains all over the back of her long, flowing brown hair. “Long enough to get more bronze,” she answered before curiously looking at her tanned skin. “Or maybe caramel? Still trying to understand this new skin I’m in.”

            “Lindsay, tell Wirt that we can’t go home,” Greg implored. “Not when we’re having so much fun!”

            “It’s not my place to change Wirt’s mind, sweetheart,” Lindsay said while getting to her feet, brushing sand grains off her backside. “If he wants to go home, he’s free to make that decision.”

            Greg huffed, folding his arms in aggravation.

            Noticing this, Wirt attempted to reason with his brother. His opportunity was robbed, however, when he and his friends heard a loud engine approach their spot on the beach. A large Hummer vehicle with a camo body design pulled right up. Its passengers were three militant-looking men, wearing berets and combat uniforms and armed with assault rifles.

            The man who they presumed to be the commander – a beefy Caucasian gentleman of fifty years age with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache – walked straight up to Lindsay. She reflected off his sunglasses, just as he did off hers. “How can we help you boys on this beautiful day?” she asked in her friendliest way.

            “SHUT UP!” the commander roared. His two escorts corresponded with his aggressive demeanor by aiming their rifles directly at Lindsay.

            She instinctively raised her hands. “Alright, alright. No need for this to get R-rated. There are children present, ya know.”

            “Like you ever cared about kids,” the commander derided her. He then forcibly removed her sunglasses to see her eyes, which briefly squinted under the sudden exposure to the daylight. “Yep. I recognize those black slanted eyes anywhere.”

            “Wow,” the unamused Lindsay uttered. “Quite the racist observation there. But thanks for the compliment…I guess.”

            “If you’re trying to pass yourself off as a civilian, you should’ve done better than hiding your accent,” the commander remarked, much to Lindsay’s confusion. “Restrain this monster, boys. Finally, this nightmare will be over!”

            The soldiers acknowledged his command and moved in on Lindsay with a pair of handcuffs. This urged Toby, Wirt, and Greg to fly into protest, stepping in between Lindsay and the soldiers. Meanwhile, Lindsay kept herself calm during the whole ordeal, not wanting for it to escalate any further. That was until one of the two soldiers kicked Greg down when he tried to stop him by cleaving his little body onto the man’s leg.

            “You really shouldn’t have done that,” Lindsay roared in fury, sparking into “Gladiator Mode” and taking the commander and his men down with the enhanced fighting skills she retained from her predecessor in the Mortal Kombat Tournament.

            It gave Lindsay and her young companions the chance of fleeing, hoping to get to her TARDIS before the militant men caught up with them.

            Eventually, they did find a TARDIS…just not her TARDIS.

            A familiar blue police box stood on the shore. And there was only one man Lindsay knew of who would have brought it all the way out to the Asian coast. Relieved, she and her companions rushed into it, with Lindsay permitting them entry by using her sonic screwdriver on the lock.

            “How are we gonna be safe inside of a funky old…?!”

            Toby ceased in her patronizing once she, Lindsay, and the boys were inside. Just like the tall black rectangular solid that Lindsay was the proud owner of, there was more to this police box than meets the eye. A much broader interior was housed, bearing striking similarities to the console room of Lindsay’s TARDIS, which could only mean to Toby, Greg, and Wirt that it was one.

            “A-Another TARDIS?!” Wirt exclaimed. “How is this possible?!”

            Lindsay took in the interior just as her friends did, noting how vastly different it was to what she had seen before.

            “What are you three doing in here?!”

            At the control console, they sighted two men – one with longish, rumpled black hair and in clothes that seemed too large for his short frame, and the other who was much younger, wearing a traditional Scottish kilt.

            “Sorry,” Lindsay said. “We’re just looking for the Doctor.”

            “I am the Doctor,” the older man boldly stated. “And this is my TARDIS!”

            “Doctor, look at her face,” the young, kilt-wearing man indicated Lindsay, speaking with a noticeable Scottish accent. “It’s her! It’s Urodela! That black-hearted banshee who took Zoe!”

            He proceeded to rush at Lindsay, raising a knife high above his head.