Stories of Who series 2 Episode 1: A New Mission

(Following a successful and exciting launch series, Stories of Who returns for its second season, as the Doctor and his friends experience thirteen brand new adventures through space and time. And here, it begins...)

There was once a thing called the Dimension Bridge. It was a gap bridging the boundaries of reality; separating dimensions and realities apart from each other. But the Dimension Bridge was starting to collapse. The boundaries of time were beginning to become less stable. The bridge failed in its purpose of separating universes apart, instead it brought them together.

The Doctor knew that the only option to save reality and everything he cares about was to try and close the Dimension Bridge. He realised that the TARDIS, his time travelling machine, had exactly the capability to do so. But when he arrived at the Dimension Bridge, nothing happened. The next thing he knew he had returned to Moros where he had left off. Someone else had closed the Dimension Bridge. Those people were his friends, Janet Wilkinson and Lydia Barker.

Lydia had died after entering the heart of the Dimension Bridge, but Janet was lucky. She had only aged as a consequence of entering the heart. She must have had a stronger will. The Doctor knew he had to repay her somehow. He couldn’t just let her lose precious life. He needed to do something.

He left Janet's bedside and hurried into the TARDIS. Janet was too fragile to move. He looked around the console before plotting a few coordinates and tapping a few buttons into the console. It was only a matter of moments before he had arrived at his destination: Moros, the former location of the Dimension Exhibition.

He ran towards the doors but they would not open. He heard spluttering from behind him, and when he turned around he noticed a hollow figure was standing behind him. It was the same figure he had seen in the Dimension Bridge. The figure drifted towards the Doctor.

“You again?” The Doctor remarked. “Who exactly are you anyway?”

“I am your Guardian, Doctor. I am here to offer you a deal. Your friends, Lydia Barker and Janet Wilkinson paid a high price to save the universe, to save you, Doctor. It’s too late for Lydia I’m afraid. She sacrificed her life in order to create another bridge between realities. But Janet Wilkinson is another matter.”

The Doctor looked at him. “You can bring her back to how she was? What will it cost?”

“Everything.”

“Whatever it takes, I guess. But if the whole of time itself is damaged just to save one person then…”

“No, time itself will be safe. For now, at least.”

Inside of the hospital ward, Janet received her daily meal. She was looking forward to a roast dinner but when she opened it up, it contained two potatoes, one small slice of chicken and a carrot.

Janet groaned. “Can I order two of these please?”

A moment later a groaning noise sounded from far away. The TARDIS returned. The Doctor departed it before returning to Janets bedside.

“Take my hand, Janet. I need you to come to the TARDIS.”

“Have you looked at me? I’m not fit enough to go anywhere.”

The Doctor sighed. “Please, Janet. You’ll like it.”

The Doctor grabbed Janets hand and carried her towards the TARDIS. When the doors opened, he led her in, and suddenly she became young again.

“Wha-” Janet was confused. “How-When-Where-Who-?”

“You missed out why.”

Janet looked at herself. All the age that she had gained upon entering the Dimension Bridge had disapeared. She was young again. All that time had returned to her. All those potential adventures she could have had with the Doctor are open once again.

“So how did you do it, Doctor.?” Janet asked.

“I found a way. There was a way. There’s always a way.”

Janet looked at him. “Promise me you haven’t done anything stupid.”

“I always do something stupid. I’m the Doctor.” He pressed a button on the console. “So, where do you want to go now?”

Janet shifted towards the console. “I’m grateful that you’ve managed to find a way to decrease my age by quite a significant amount, but I’d be even more grateful if you told me how you did it.”

The Doctor looked at her. “Where do you want to go now?”

“I want to know what you did, Doctor.”

“I did what I had to do,” The Doctor finally answered. “I always do what I have to do but that’s never good enough for everyone is it. I try so hard to do all I can to make this universe a better place and look at the gratitude I get. Doing what I do is difficult. Trying to please everyone I can is difficult, but we’ve all had a difficult few days. I’ve made friends, lost friends, made enemies, slaughtered enemies. But I’ve always tried. So I asked you a question, where do you want to go next?”

Suddenly, an alarm sounded on the console. The Doctor looked at the screen.

“Oh no that’s not good,” The Doctor responded.

“What’s wrong?” Asked Janet, now worried.

“I did a speech and that stole my thunder,” The Doctor joked.

“The bell? What’s the bell for?”

“It’s the cloister bell. It tells me when there’s something I need to worry about going on in the TARDIS. Something’s not right but I’m not sure exactly what isn’t.”

The Doctor surveyed the console to look for problems but he could not notice any. He hurried through the corridors of the ship while Janet remained in the console. A few moments later the Doctor returned. The TARDIS went completely dark for a moment.

“Okay, that’s never happened before.” The Doctor said.

The Doctor and Janet prepared themselves for whatever would happen next. They heard faint sounds of laughter which got progressively louder by the second.

The Doctor grabbed his sonic screwdriver. “Hello? Whoever that is, leave my ship. This is my TARDIS and I’ve had a very long day, so whoever you are, get the hell out of my TARDIS.”

The figure he had seen before emerged. “I can’t believe you didn’t recognise me, Doctor.”

“I didn’t know I was meant to.”

“We have faced each other on a few occasions in the past. I thought I’d change my form and voice slightly so you didn’t recognise me while we made our deals. My name is the Black Guardian.”

The Guardian soon emerged in the form the Doctor recognised him from. He groaned. “I thought I’d got rid of you.”

“While there is life, there is darkness.”

“So what are you doing back here? Why have you been watching over me? And what the hell have you done with my TARDIS?”

“The universe as we know it is falling apart, and if it does that then there will be no need for a black Guardian to exist anymore. I needed to make a deal with you and your friends so that you would close the dimension bridge and I can still exist. But now I am done with you and your friends, I can kill the two of you.”

The Doctor had a smug expression on his face. “I’d like to see you try.”

He floated towards Janet and chucked her to the floor. He then formed a weapon in his hand and held her to the floor with it. He grinned.

“Leave Janet alone, Black Guardian. The universe is safe now. The bridge is closed.”

“But the bridge shall not be closed for long, Doctor. After the deal that we made, the boundaries of the universe have returned. More will have to make a sacrifice. But after what you have done in the past, I made sure one of those was your friend. I opened up portals in certain places in existence because I knew you needed to go to a few locations in order for my plan to work. If you and Lydia’s paths were not separated following events involving the Gods of Ragnarok, then none of this would have worked as well.”

Janet was still restrained. “I don’t appreciate being threatened like this.”

“Look, Guardian, we made a deal. The Dimension Bridge is closed now, so leave me and my friends alone.”

“I’m not scared of you, Doctor. It surprises me how many beings quiver at the thought of the Time Lord known as the Doctor. I mean, look at you. You’re not threatening in the slightest.”

“I think the same involving you.”

The Black Guardian held Janet by the tip of his darkened blade. “I think you best be careful what you say when I’m holding your friend at the tip of my weapon. You’ve lost too many friends today. Do you really want to lose another?”

“Just please let Janet go. As I say, you’ve got what you want. There’s no need for blood and torment. The universe is safe. The balance is restored. The Black Guardian shall live on. How’s the white Guardian doing nowadays anyhow?”

“I have now dealt with the fact that there is no way for me and the White Guardian to destroy each other. We must coexist, and if we don’t we cannot exist. There must be darkness in this universe, but there must also be light. It would be great if things were different.”

The Doctor hovered around the console. “It’s a funny old story. You and the White Guardian. I haven’t bumped into him for a while.”

The Black Guardian halted. “Are you trying to distract me?”

The Doctor pressed a button releasing a huge wave of light through the console. The Black Guardians weapon disappeared. Janet ran out of his clutches and towards the Doctor.

The Doctor grinned. “Light and darkness have to coexist you said. Well, let’s have them coexist in here too. Close your eyes, Janet. The light can be slightly overbearing sometimes.”

The Black Guardian screamed. “I’ll get you for this, Doctor.”

The Doctor waved. “I’m looking forward to it. Goodbye.”

The Black Guardian vanished. The Doctor flicked a button, changing the light back to normal. The Doctor held Janets hand, but she soon released herself from his grip.

“Doctor, the Guardian said you made a deal with him. What did he mean?”

The Doctor remained silent. “You didn’t get the opportunity to answer my question before. Where do you want to go next? The seven moons of Balhoon are nice. Lovely small blue people in chairs. Gotta love a chair! Or, we could go and help Rosa Parks, but I’ve done that before.”

“Balhoon. I’d quite like to see what the chair people are up to.”

A few moments later, the ship arrived on Balhoon. The TARDIS doors opened, revealing a beautiful landscape filled with blue skies and yellow trees and orange sands and red grass. It was a lovely place. The Doctor and Janet marvelled at the sight.

“This is the first moon of Balhoon. If you look around you can see the seven floating in the sky, but only great minds can see that.”

A moon passed which the Doctor and Janet both saw. “I saw it.”

“Me too. We must both have great minds. We’ve had a very long few days. We’ve been at the heart of various invasions and have both lost many, many friends. But here we are at the end of that. The universe will never stop needing us, and it will never start to appreciate us, but this is where we finally get to sit down, talk, relax and remember. All those people we’ve loved and lost today as a fault of our actions: Lydia, Matt, Destari, the Sector, the people of Moros, the people of the Britannia, the tenth of the population wiped out in the alternative dimension. They won’t be forgotten. And we’ve got to hope that what we’ve done won’t be either.”

“And what about the Tsuraxi? You said you’ve been hunting for them for a long time and yet now you just seem to have given up.”

“They prophesied that they would be there at my final downfall. There wasn’t anything final about that for me. My final downfall is yet to come, but there’s no point chasing the Tsuraxi. If it’s meant to be, then it will be. I don’t need to chase it, I need to let it chase me.”

Janet looked at the Doctor and smiled. “The universe doesn’t deserve you, Doctor.”

“It doesn’t deserve you either, Janet. I haven’t risked anything today compared to you and Lydia. The both of you died a few times over the last few days. Thank god you survived, because I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t.”

Suddenly, Janet was stabbed in the throat by a figure from behind. The Doctor looked back: It was the Black Guardian.

“I told you that I’d get you for that, Doctor.”

The Black Guardian disappeared, leaving the Doctor hopeless. He carried Janet into the TARDIS and cried. He had lost another friend. He moved over to the console. He couldn’t deal with another loss today. He had to do something.

A few moments later, the TARDIS arrived at its next destination. It was Delor, the planet of the soul. He carried his friend towards a burning fire, surrounded by a cult of humanoids.

“You have returned to Delor, Doctor, and you have changed your face. We sensed it was you.” One of the Cult responded.

“Yes, I have, and I need you again. I know when I came here in my last incarnation things didn’t work out when I tried to resurrect Delora, the queen of this planet who became my companion, but this is Janet, and I need you to help her.”

One of the cult observed her. “What happened to her.”

“The being known as the Black Guardian stabbed her through the throat. I know you have the power to heal her here so please do it.”

“Of course, Doctor, but it’ll take a while.”

The Doctor nodded. “I’ll take a look around the planet.”

The Doctor began to walk around the streets of Delor where a parade was going ahead. He grinned. He loved seeing the ways some planets entertain each other. Suddenly, a gunshot rippled through the area. He ducked to the ground.

Far far away in a space station on the edge of the galaxy, two men strolled into the office of the Great space commander known as Galactus Bates. He had only been doing his job for five years now, but he had become a legend.

“Galactus,” One of the men began. “The planet Moros requires your assistance. The sector of the planet is dead and wishes for you to replace them.”

Galactus grinned. “That’s great, but I heard the entire population died.”

“It’s your job to populate it, sir. That’s if you want to take the job of course.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes. Set the ship on the course to Moros.” He turned around. “Will the man I’ve told you about be there? The Doctor?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“Well, he’s an old friend of mine and I think it’d be great if he came to opening day. Please get in touch with him somehow. The Doctor is required.”

Next Week: The Council of Delor