Impossible Paths

[Garchomp]

or that thread where Storm writes actual AM-specific fanfiction

Requests are open.

1. That time Garchomp almost became a magical girl
2. Clara meets one of the Doctors and is told she can't travel - requested by Jemi
3. Team TARDIS doing stuff, with casual danger dialogue - requested by Jemi
4. Fluffy deciding to die
5. Shio and hunger
6. Mithos, alone
7. Oswin and Ten's first trip to another planet - requested by Jemi
8. Team TARDIS 2.0, post Fluffy's death - requested by Meeks
9. Team TARDIS 2.0's trolling wars - requested by both Jemi and Meeks

-

The white fluffy thing had no smell. That was the first thing she noticed as she approached the TARDIS – it was sitting neatly in front of it, looking a bit like a cat or a weasel and very much like a Pokemon. A bleached Eevee, maybe? But its eyes were red and unblinking and she felt vaguely uneasy as it turned its head to look at her.

“Hello!” it said in a cheerful voice that she didn't hear with her ears, and she hissed at it. Psychics. Of course it was a Psychic. “You're Garchomp, aren't you? Oswin was telling me about you.”

It had spoken to Oswin? She studied it again and nodded stiffly. It moved its tail in a hypnotic motion that made her want to look at it, but she kept her eyes on its paws instead. She had had that trick used against her before. It didn't look like it could hurt her, but if it was a Psychic-type, then she wasn't about to let herself be distracted. “Who are you?” she asked cautiously, and it twitched its ears.

“I am Kyubey! It's a pleasure to meet you. You know, you have much more potential than I first thought.”

That was strange, and she reared back a little, considering. “What you mean?”

It licked a paw, but the motion looked a little out of place. It didn't look dirty or ruffled either – its fur was pure white and completely clean. “You can do a great deal, but you're not strong enough yet, are you? There are many here who can defeat you in battle.” She huffed – those defeats stung still, when she thought about them – and it twitched his tail again, back and forth. “But you can get stronger! If you make a contract with me, you will be strong enough to fight anything you desire. You will also be able to wish for anything, and I will make it come true! The only thing is that you will need to fight demons, but you are a fighter already. I don't think they would be a problem for you.”

“A contract?” she repeated, thinking her way through what it had said. To get stronger – but what would she wish for? But this didn't seem right. Strength was earned, like experience, learning through battle. This felt wrong. “No. Will fight, get stronger that way.” It just stared at her as she turned away.

Much later, Oswin told her a little about it – something about souls and tricking people into dying, and the next time she saw it, she lunged, expecting to be blasted back by some sort of barrier. It died easily as her jaws closed on its back and neck, but its flesh tasted like cold, bitter air, and it took a surprising amount of food to cleanse the taste from her mouth. The corpse she left alone, with a hint of superstitious fear once it began to dissolve by itself.

She hoped she never saw it again.

[Garchomp]

It was something of a cruel game, usually. Clara walked in to the strange building – often in various states of disarray and repair from some sort of battle – only to find nothing out of the ordinary there. No battered blue box, though everyone said it was there, and that it came often.

Fate liked taunting her.

So on the one day she hadn't really been expecting to see it – after all, it was the kind of thing that one needed to go out and look for, wasn't it? – she even managed a few paces before it really hit her. That specific shade of blue, which was already imprinted into her memory, the shape of it – so at odds with the room and yet somehow so easy to pass over.

And the person leaning against its doors, arms crossed and expression blank, like he was waiting for someone. It wasn't the Doctor, that was certain – he looked older, and wore different clothing, a long billowing coat over some kind of suit. A completely different person, really, until he looked up, and the force of his eyes struck her, all that wisdom and age and regret. He and the Doctor could be brothers, but this one seemed... younger, somehow. She started towards the box – the TARDIS, he had called it, his ship that could soar through time and space as normal ships sliced through the waves – and the man straightened.

“Clara Oswin Oswald!” he declared, rolling her name around. She stopped a few paces away, eyeing the shut doors.

“You're with the Doctor, then.”

“Me?” he said, running a hand through his already heavily tousled hair. “Well, I am the Doctor. I mean, I'm him, or well, not him exactly but we're the same... it's a bit of a complicated thing to explain on the first go.”

Everything she had ever wanted was right there, but this didn't make sense, and she couldn't stand not knowing something. Crossing her arms, she lifted her chin in a silent challenge. “Try me, then.”

“Well! It's uh... a bit of a wibbly wobbly thing, here. Typically, when we die – by we, I mean Time Lords, that's what he... well, what I am, we're aliens, did he tell you that? Aliens from a human perspective of course. When we die, we don't die, we regenerate – new body, new personality, essentially a new man with the same old memories. Not the most fun experience, but here we've got... several regenerations all out of order. Really, we shouldn't ever meet. A terrible thing for the timeline to deal with, all those Doctors...” He grinned at her, an expression that made her want to smile in return, join in on this joke she didn't really grasp just yet.

“So which one are you?” she asked, and he scratched his head.

“The tenth, chronologically speaking... the one you met is the eleventh.” He paused dramatically, and then wiggled his fingers in an absurd wave. “So I'm the Doctor. Hello!”

“Clara Oswin Oswald,” she offered in return, and bobbed a not too serious curtsy. He made her want to like him, just by looking at him – it really was the same thing as the other Doctor. Her Doctor. “But... you already knew that. So, now that we've met, can I see him? Your eleventh, I mean.” His face fell, not into a sad expression, but rather something blank and resigned.

“No,” he said. “You can't.”

She took a quick breath and decided that simply pushing past him would not be a good idea. He was taller than her, and was standing a little bracingly, like he expected it. “I don't understand. I'm here, and you... he asked. I... I died, but now I have a second chance, right?”

His face was entirely still. “No,” he repeated, slowly, like stretching it out would somehow spare her the pain. “I'm sorry, but you can't.”

Words shouldn't have hurt so much. It wasn't like being hit, simply – there was the surprise of pain, and the impact, but this went far deeper than a punch could, cutting into her heart. She didn't cry – she was good at that, good at hiding just how much things could hurt – but she straightened a little and hoped he wouldn't notice how breathy her voice was. “And why's that then?”

He met her eyes steadily, and she wanted to flinch away from the sorrow there, the grief and the regret. “I can't tell you.”

“So you're just going to tell me to... to sod off when you and him are right here? To just...” She broke off, because her voice was rising and she couldn't bear to just break down, not in front of the Doctor, even if this wasn't the right one. “And you won't even tell me why?”

He leaned forward suddenly. “Listen to me, Clara. You saved the world. You. Keep that close, and remember it –” He faltered and then shook his head sharply. “It's not going to be easy, but... there's more to life than the TARDIS, and travelling. A lot more, especially for someone as brilliant as you. Look for that.”

“It won't be the same.” Her voice was small and tight and she wanted to hate him for doing this to her.

“No, it won't. It can't be, but there are things just as wonderful out there, I promise.” He was pleading with her, really, and she wondered why this mattered so much to him. It's not like they knew each other, after all. “It'll be hard, but you have to walk away. And... you can't wish. Especially don't wish to come with us. Wishing hard is bad enough normally, and here... just, don't. You'll be happier that way.”

She folded her arms a bit more tightly. “And I can trust what you're saying?” she said, knowing she sounded sullen and afraid and unable to stop herself. This wasn't fair, it wasn't right.

The not her Doctor sighed. “You've got to. Trust me on this. Please.”

“So that's it then. I just have to... go. To leave. I was waiting, I was going to find him and we'd see the stars – he asked me to go along –” She cut herself off before she could sound too whiny, too desperate.

“What's that? You, waiting? You can do better than that, can't you? You're too brilliant to just hang around waiting for this old box to show up.” He smiled at her, and the expression was sudden and brittle, like if she said anything it would falter and break and reveal that same resignation again. “Come on, Clara! You're better than some damsel in distress. There's adventure here – beautiful, grand mysteries. You should go out and find them.”

Clara took a step back, and he seemed to take that as agreement – opening the door, he stepped inside, just as she caught a glimpse of the vast interior. “Wait!”

“I'm sorry,” the Doctor told her, and closed the door. It slammed shut with an echoing finality, made worse as the TARDIS slowly disappeared in front of her.

Her hand closed on empty air.

[Garchomp]

Something unseen - the Doctor leaning heavily against the door, and very specifically not looking at Oswin's room where she's still likely asleep.

Another thing - every wishing hivemind converging on Clara's location with extreme speed.

And a last thing - Storm throwing up her arms and flailing because she forgot how to write feels without being melodramatic.

[Garchomp]

This took far too long and I'm convinced it is not that good but trying to write something less serious was quite a lot of fun regardless. ALSO PIMPING MY OWN CHARACTER YEAAAAH. I imagine that any time Garchomp hitches a ride with Team TARDIS, their solution to the day's problem is a lot quicker and more inclined to explode in their faces.

Because dragons.

-

“This is just like old times!” Donna said, catching her breath after a particularly extended stretch of running for her life. A few metres in front of them, a wall crumbled as a dragon tore through it, shrieking in what might have been glee. Or rage. She didn't really feel like asking for clarification.

“Great stuff, yeah?” Oswin said with an infectious grin. She brushed off a few loose chunks of rock.

“It's just –”

“What?”

“I don't remember there being quite so many things exploding when it was just two of us.” A blast of energy tore more stone loose from their surroundings, and they shielded themselves from the dust. There were some distant shouts of surprise. “Do you think they'll be able to salvage the temple? We're wrecking an awful lot of it....”

“Should be fine, they have the technology to repair almost everything like that –”

“What are you two doing? There's a cadre of guards coming down and they'll be here in a moment and you're just... gossiping! Oh, cadre, that's a nice word. Why haven't I used it before?” The Doctor skidded in, grinning and unhampered by his own light coating of dust. “Now, guards, slowly collapsing building... it seems it's time to run!”

They did run, right back to the central chamber with its soaring pillars of glass, which were keening in a rather worrying way. It wasn't an audible sound, but something deeper, digging into their brains. The Doctor, almost irritatingly immune to it, spun around briefly for a look at the doorways which were rapidly being blocked by more guards. “You know, it really is a wonderful thing, psychically capable sand that forms glass... I admit, the idea to amplify it is ingenious! Kind of hard to get the results you'd want for anything detailed, but if you just want a big old psychic scream, well then, it's perfect!” The glass pillars warped and grew a little higher, shaking as the sound grew in mental pitch. Donna and Oswin winced.

“That Psychic?” Garchomp asked, and the Doctor shot her a glance, cut off in what seemed like a continuation of his rambling.

“I just said that, didn't I?”

The dragon nodded and then, without any battlecry at all, slammed into the pillars. They shattered, most satisfyingly. The psychic vibrations cut off, releasing instead a shockwave of something that hurled everyone in the room back.

The dust settled. The companions resigned themselves to breathing in sand and dust for the rest of the day. The Doctor brushed himself off and bounced to his feet as if nothing of any real significance had happened. “Oswin, get your dragon out of the psychic glass. That's a sacred and very rare artifact, not a... sand wallow. See if I take you along to any more vastly important cultural hotspots of the universe!”

Garchomp smugly rolled over and buried herself deeper in the shards of glass, which were rapidly disintegrating back into sand. Apparently cultural hotspots didn't matter, as long as they were sandy.

Donna looked up as the ceiling groaned. “I thought you said the building was collapsing,” she said slowly.

“It is! Oh. Right. Off we go, then!”

[Garchomp]

It really wasn't something he needed to deliberate over. He was alive. He was conscious, and afflicted with emotions – due to Nyarlathotep's trickery, but the source did not matter. He was a liability. Pitch knew of his condition, as did Hazama, and they both knew his own information would now be biased. It was not the fault of anyone in particular – as soon as he ceased being objective, he could be swayed. Already, he had felt the need to hide the secrets of those he might consider friends. He did not want to see them used, or hurt.

That was wrong. He could not place them, or his bonds, or his feelings above his duties. The universe and its existence were paramount.

The solution was simple. He came to it when he was gathered with Pitch and Hazama, delivering his report and gauging the probability of Pitch threatening him during the meeting. He did not bother with masking the hivemind's presence – it was useful to have multiple viewpoints and a nigh-infinite loop of feedback when dealing with both of them – and it was with that shared clarity that he reached the most efficient answer. Tampering with memories was a subtle art, but Hazama was capable of it – and he would have reasoning enough to do so without any further prompting. As for the more difficult part... he had died before.

This time would be different, of course, and he regretted that the situation had worsened to such an extent. That he could regret it, and wish he was not going to hurt the others... that itself said enough. He was too sick to have any other way out.

Still, he could understand how connected individuals were to their lives. It was the only thing they knew. To be so intimately entwined with a body, with so much sensation and emotion attached to every act, every thought... it still bewildered and fascinated him. Dying was hard to comprehend. Putting an end to all of his thoughts and feelings... an end to him. His individual consciousness would be snuffed out with the care of someone blowing out a candle.

It was for the best. He knew that, objectively.

But the thought of the future filled him with what he knew as fear. This – all of it, the affection he had for the motley band on the TARDIS, the memories he had that were solely his own, his very identity – was coming to an end.

Knowing what was coming, his only solace was this sacrifice would be worth it. For the sake of everyone.

[Garchomp]

hey guys look a wordy and pretentious drabble about Shio and Aragami everyone's favourite :]

-

Sometimes, they ask what Aragami are – all of them do, eventually – and she always pauses because the words aren't there. The words are never there, not for this. Even after spending so much time with humans, sometimes, she forgets that they don't know the hunger, or the need to be stronger.

They can't hear it, the murmurs of tens, sometimes hundreds of others, small and large, eating each other and people and anything else. They chase the edges of her thoughts like how the wind chases and shapes the clouds – hunger and struggle and always more, moremoremoremore. Only the stronger ones are clearer, but never her clarity, never anything close to human. Their hungers are deeper and grander, and she understands them better, because when she doesn't think, she can feel that same desire, an ache of her core to reach out to all the wonderful and terrible things and make them hers.

It scares her, because she knows this better than words, better than her name or her shape. Maybe it is why she can make the smaller ones listen to her, because her hunger is bigger than theirs. They know they cannot devour her, and that in the end, she will be the end of all of them – no matter when it is.

But humans don't hear that, don't understand. So she wishes she could find the right words for them.

Aragami are the core, she wants to say. They are skin and bone and blood and the plants and the sky. It is that hole that startles her when she first arrives, but it is soon filled, and she can feel the minute hungers of everything once more. Aragami are hunger, and knowing the hunger of the others, knowing which is stronger, which is prey and which is not. They are not the darkness that humans mention sometimes, something that hides unknown terrors. To her, they are the shadows everything has – they have always been there. They will always be there.

Even Nova is not a reaching, grasping and sudden darkness. It is where her anger and fear and hunger pool, beneath her bones, behind her eyes. It is her when she is tired and hungry, so hungry, and she knows there is so much she could eat, if she could just reach out a little more, stretch beyond thin arms and legs and hands she isn't used to. It is sleeping and eating and not needing to think, and it frightens her because she could fall in as easy as breathing.

But she can't say this, not really, and this is when she realizes that words, while wonderful, will never be enough. And that leaves her another hunger, another space that can't be filled.

Maybe humans don't have that. She will never really know.

[Garchomp]

Damn do I love apocalypses, apparently. This is the last part of "let's make Mithos break entirely by killing everyone else off" segment. The first two parts, written by Jemi and Meeks are wonderful and you should go read them right now.

-

The occasion should have been momentous. When he had allowed himself to dream of this power, it had always been something triumphant. A victory, a way back to what he had once been. The Eternal Sword was a hero's weapon, after all.

This was not a victory.

He had never felt more defeated, even when he was actively trying to not feel. If he thought back too much, if he dwelt on what had happened, he would break, and he couldn't allow that. Not yet. This he had to do first. There was no more time for grief or sorrow. Yes, his life was slipping away from him, replaced by emptiness but... but he had felt like that before. All that mattered was that he kept to his goal, kept moving. But still...

How could everyone have died? Kazuma... his death had been expected in some ways, but that wasn't how things were going to end. Mithos was going to save him, redeem himself, make everything better – and it hadn't worked. None of it had. Hazama might not have been prepared, but that didn't change the end result. He had failed in that. He hadn't been by Oswin's side as she died, defending the Doctor. Even if he had been, there would have been nothing he could have done to save her. She wouldn't have permitted becoming an angel just to prolong her life, and he had no healing magic.

Regina had died, alone, without him anywhere nearby. He hadn't even known until the next day. How could he even say that he had changed, that he was better, if everyone he cared about died? He had sworn to protect them and then he had done nothing. Worse still, Pitch and Hazama knew it, and had taunted him about his vaunted heroics. What use was power if he could do nothing? He hadn't been able to save any of them. He didn't even have any of their souls, any way to revive them. He had said he didn't want to be alone... and now he was the only one of his friends still alive.

This was all that was left. A way out of the grief and despair.

The sword cast off an unearthly light, putting everything in sharp contrast and stretching out the shadows of the room. He had dreamt of this, but now, all those dreams were gone, shattered. It had been futile to cling to them anyways. Why think the world was better than it was? Every single time he decided to hope for a better future, to be able to change something, he was betrayed again. This would be the last time. He would make sure of that.

This wasn't really how things were supposed to go, even now. The Sword had been wrested away from Origin in another timeline, probably. The pact ring he hadn't earned rested on his finger now, also ill-gotten. It didn't matter. It would have, once.

Reaching out, he took up the sword. The purple light was quickly refracted and purified as his wings manifested. Only one last thing to do, now.

His Cruxis Crystal was easy enough to remove from his chest, and it looked deceptively plain as it lay in his hand, a faceted green gem. It glowed faintly when he activated it. Usually the process was gradual, but that had been so the Chosen would not panic and try to avoid their fate. He hardly needed to wait. There was a faint ache as he stripped away most of his senses, and then numbness. The basic directive of a lifeless being was to survive – but he changed that, calling on the stored mana signatures of his enemies.

His purpose wasn't to live. It was to kill Hazama and Pitch at any cost. For that, he had to cast away all fears, doubts, hatred. At this point, it was easy.

He might have been relieved as his pain and hatred and grief flowed into the Cruxis Crystal, but he wasn't capable of that either. All that was left was cold, focused purpose. He wouldn't feel anything again – but that suited him well enough. He didn't plan for this to take long.

The Eternal Sword told him where to find them, so he simply teleported. There was no reason to hold back, no reason to fight as he once had. He had all of this power – it was time to put it to use for something he wouldn't have the chance to regret.

A moment later, a thousand rifts opened at once with a sudden onrush of air, and then a single one dwarfed them all, cutting through the entire world and expanding like a gaping wound. There was nothing beyond it, just a crushing void.

And then there was nothing left at all.

[Garchomp]

there was a typo, which I fixed before I posted it, but the alternative had to be explored

-

“Tanks, Emil,” Lilynette muttered, gazing down at the guns.

Emil waved a hand. “No, it was no problem –” he said, up until his brain caught up with his mouth and pointed out that she was not thanking him.

“I said I wanted a tank, idiot!”

“But –”

“What else could you think I meant when I said I wanted long-range? You're so fucking slow sometimes!”

“But a tank?”

“And it needs to shoot ceros the size of buildings, and move fast enough to keep up with sonido, and have great armour, and –”

He decided that he was never going to give her a gift again. Or at least, he'd ask Starrk about it first.

[Garchomp]

Oswin looked up, and remembered the sky.

It couldn't have been so long since she last saw it, but it felt like an eternity. There was a time when everything had been pain and relentless, burning hatred for the entire universe, and then the illusion of a life she had made for herself, outside of the armour. That time had stretched on forever – but it was past now. She was with the Doctor.

He had asked her where she wanted to go, and the possibilities made her head spin – any time, any place, to watch planets form or walk on alien ground – but she had known what she wanted ages ago.

“The stars. Take me to see the stars.”

Now here they were, sprawled out in a field that was, even at night, the ruddy colour of amber. At first, they had talked a little, and the Doctor had told her about the planets he had visited, sketched out entire alien civilizations that had risen and fallen centuries in the past or millennia in the future. Tomorrow, she would breathe in the scope of that, let the excitement of her utter freedom pound in her veins. But right now....

Right now, she looked up at the stars. There was no way to count them, or limit them. They were endless. She drew in the sight, locked it into her mind – a shield from the nightmares, a shield from every terrible memory she had.

She belonged here.