MIRROR REFLECTION 1/1 TTR,TDF by Paul Gadzikowski DOCTOR WHO series characters and concepts copyright BBC tv THIS TIME ROUND created by Tyler Dion, after Kielle TO DIE FOR fostered by D B Killings and B K Willis KING ARTHUR IN TIME AND SPACE is all mine. ...Hey wow. Even when on duty, Adric always looked up to see who it was when the door to This Time Round opened. It was nearly the end of his shift - the end of the grace period which the other TTR patrons had demanded of Nyssa - when the strangers arrived. One was a tall skinny blonde woman who looked almost, but not quite, exactly unlike Romana Two. She wore a replica of Doctor Seven's outfit, but with the question mark motif replaced by ankhs, even to the umbrella handle. She strode directly to the table where the Doctors were drinking and was greeted by them in the same manner as they always greeted each other (loudly and with bad grace). The other stranger Adric looked at twice. Aside from his outfit - made of a silvery, shiny fabric; styled to resemble a medieval suit of armor - he was Adric's mirror image. This fellow, spotting Adric behind the bar, immediately advanced upon the Alzarian with a smile. "Sir Pelleas of the Round Table," he said, as Adric shook his proffered hand. "Hello," said Adric, none the wiser. "From Gadzikowski's 'King Arthur in Time and Space' stuff," Pelleas explained. "I'm in the Arthur version of QUONDAM FUTURUSQUE, which starts being serialized on his website on Friday." "Oh!" said Adric. "Pleased to meet you. Get you anything?" "Oh, a port. Or a mead. Something medieval like that." "Better not let Polly see you," said Adric, as he served. "You're not exactly an alt.drwho.creative character." "As you say," said Pelleas. "But I just wanted to drop by and let you know, even though I'm given what are Ace's lines in the original version of the story, you're the character whose face the author sees on me." "I can see that," said Adric. "So even though you died a pointless death as a contradictory, poorly developed, almost universally loathed character," said Pelleas, "a part of you lives on in me - a knight, a future king ... and the bloke who gets Merlin's bird after he's gone." He winked and pointed at his companion, who was arguing some obscure point of Malorian continuity with Doctor Eight. Adric looked her over again. Distracted by the memory of some fantasies about Romana he'd entertained during their overlap in the TARDIS, he was brought back by the sound of the door. Nyssa had entered, eyeing her watch and hefting some ugly, substantial space-opera pistol. Adric ducked behind the beer tap. It was less than a minute until he was fair game. "I say, as long as you're there," said Pelleas, oblivious to Adric's panic, pushing the glass of port away with a sour face, "pull me a Miller Lite." "Sure." Adric kept his eye on Nyssa as her eyes scanned the bar. Keeping behind cover, he slid Pelleas his beer just as Nyssa spotted the space knight - and across her face broke an Evil Grin(tm). *She thinks he's me,* Adric thought. *She's going to shoot him instead!* Adric instantly dismissed any notion of nobly disabusing Nyssa of her misapprehension for Pelleas' sake. There was no way Pelleas could actually come to any genuine harm as a result of events in This Time Round. Pelleas was a centuries-old character from British mythology (Adric suddenly knew this with the selective omniscience that was peculiar to This Time Round occupants), only here to plug his slumming around on some fanfic geek's website. Adric, on the other hand, had no life any more *but* This Time Round (at least till Killings wrote more PHOENIX), and preferred to hold onto that life for as great a percentage of the time as possible. It was fifteen seconds until shift change as Pelleas raised his glass and Nyssa, still at the doorway as if she meant to kill Adric on her way to more important business elsewhere, raised her weapon. If she'd only just off Pelleas and leave, Adric would be safe ... "Huh," came the voice of Francois, from somewhere behind Adric, the Ogron having arrived to take the next shift. "Who is twerp-lookalike in laser armor?" *Laser armor*? The clock struck the hour. Nyssa clenched her trigger finger. A tight beam of visible light issued from her weapon, striking Pelleas on the sleeve of his forearm closer to her, and bouncing thence off the reflective fabric of his clothing behind the bar past the beer tap to strike Adric in the center of the chest. "Bugger," said Adric. ISN'T IT THOUGH. THE END