Lost In Time: A Doctor Who Fanfiction

Chapter 98 - Chaos, Coats, and Chaotic Coats

Lyssa carefully finished detangling her hair and set the comb off to the side with a yawn. After the not-adventure where the TARDIS nearly exploded, the Doctor had taken them to the jungles of Mon Seleth, where butterflies were the size of her face, and she was pretty sure she'd seen a dinosaur. The Ranger got ragged mercilessly after walking into the most obvious booby trap ever and falling into a pit in the ground. But he got his own back after it ended up leading into a maze of underground tunnels that eventually led them to an underground ecosystem along the lines of Journey to the Center of the Earth.

It was beautiful down there, the darkness held at bay by glowing streams of water that ran throughout the place. Then everything went pear-shaped as usual, and they ended up stuck for almost three days after the original entrance caved in while trying to find a new one. Eventually they managed to find an exit and escape, and they all breathed a sigh of relief once they were back on the TARDIS. The Doctor had dropped Clara and the Ranger back off in London, and then set them to float somewhere in a nearby galaxy.

And that led to where she was now - finally calling Vina about what had happened with the TARDIS exploding. She probably should have done it earlier, but she didn't really think she'd get good connection half a mile underground. And there was the slight distraction of being trapped underground - good thing she wasn't claustrophobic. She was exhausted, but she needed to talk to Vina before she forgot again, and then she was supposed to meet up with the Doctor later that night.

Vina appeared on the screen with a spoonful of purple ice cream halfway to her mouth, though she put it down with a grin when she saw Lyssa. "Snowflake girl! That was fast!" She raised her eyebrows questioningly.

Lyssa grimaced. "Yeah, well, you apparently jinxed it when you told me to keep an eye out for stuff because everything immediately fell apart."

Vina popped the spoon into her mouth. "Define 'fell apart'," she requested around the utensil. 

Lyssa held two fingers close together. "The TARDIS came this close to blowing up, the Crack from the Pandorica showed up, except apparently it was from your universe, and according to my Doctor, someone from your end was using it to try and pull me through to your universe for not-good reasons."

Vina straightened abruptly, leaning forward in her chair with an intense expression. "Okay, I'm gonna need the full story on this one." She stayed quiet the whole time Lyssa explained what had happened, her posture growing tenser the more she heard. "Did you feel anything from the Crack?" she asked when Lyssa had finished. "Some sort of draw to go near it, perhaps?"

Lyssa shook her head. "I recognized it as soon as I saw it, and the only thing I felt was fear." She paused, biting her lip thoughtfully. "But I was also exhausted, and had an awful headache - I might not have noticed it in the middle of everything else. The Doctor obviously noticed something was wrong with it - more than the usual, I mean - but I didn't."

Vina frowned. "That's not good. Even worse, I think it's connected to what I found while doing some research. You remember how, when we met, Elektra told us that Ulto-451 had been taken over by the Black Guardian and his minions?"

Lyssa nodded.

"Well," Vina waved another spoonful of ice cream in the air, the treat only just staying on the spoon. "I got kind of curious, because even though taking over a galaxy is a really bad thing, it shouldn't have been enough to draw the attention of people like Elektra and Tirdis. It happens frequently enough and they've never gotten directly involved before. So I decided to do a little research. You remember how they said the Chronovores were drawn to the cracks in the walls of the universes? Turns out there's a big one in the center of that galaxy. It's massive - practically big enough to return them to full strength all on its own. That's what drew the Chronovores out of hiding.