PERI BROWN AND THE CHIMPANZEE OF SECRETS 1/1 TTR, Peri arc IViv by Paul Gadzikowski DOCTOR WHO property of the BBC THIS TIME ROUND concept by Tyler Dion, after Kielle THEN DO THIS OVER/H.G. Wells Memorial High School concept by Paul, after Imran, after Tyler, after Kielle KING ARTHUR IN TIME AND SPACE is mine. Taliesin's foil zipped upwards past Peri's cheek, taking only a sixteenth of an inch of her bangs as she dodged beneath. Before Taliesin could backhand she nicked away the curled tip of his mustache. "'Give'er a little snoop'," she alluded as they retreated to en garde. "No points," Taliesin derided cheerfully, behind his swordpoint describing little circles in the air. "The little vanities that enhance the appearance are so easily accomplished. But," he added, instead of attacking with his sword swinging a tapestry at her between them, "you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Taliesin thrust his foil through the tapestry where Peri had been standing. But she'd turned his feint to her advantage, seizing the fabric with her free hand and vaulting herself into the air while she was hidden from him by his own tactic. "You're forgetting that I'm not regular Peri - I'm high-school Peri." Even before she'd begun speaking Taliesin was spinning about, following her motion even while the tapestry hid her from him by means of the motion of the fabric. Landing behind Taliesin, Peri took a swipe at him. "Remember you roped me into some kind of magical quest by posing as the headmaster of H.G. Wells Memorial, and telling me my father was a wizard?" Warned by the ripples in the tapestry, however, Taliesin wasn't caught quite off-guard, and their foils joined in melee, giving off a sound like knives being sharpened by a stunt juggler. "And even if I was adult Peri: nyah nayh, mine all mine!" Peri backed up under Taliesin's onslaught - until she was within range to jump backwards onto the heavy oak dining table. "*You* seem to have forgotten, no doubt due to the increasing length of time between chapters," said Taliesin, swinging only defensively in his disadvantage of height, until he could kick out a chair far enough to step on, and join her on top of the table, "that the last cliffhanger was all of us deciding to join forces!" "Obviously we're not still on the same side -" Peri turned and leapt for the chandelier hanging over the centre of the table. "- or you wouldn't have attacked me with a sword." Taliesin charged after her. "How do you know you didn't start this fight?" Peri grabbed the chandelier, swung herself away - and didn't let go. "Because I'm the @&%$# good guy, moron." Taliesin tried to raise his sword and dodge as Peri swung back at him, but Peri's feet connected with his chest. "We'll, let's just have a flashback and see about that, shall we?" He fell seated in the chair at the head of the table. Sliding after him on the finely waxed surface, Peri put her swordpoint to the notch in his collarbone. "Betcha twenty bucks." "You're on." Taliesin threw himself away from her in the chair, knocking it onto its back and somersaulting backwards several times, finally coming to his feet en garde just in time to parry Peri. "Hang about," said Taliesin, as Peri, her boyfriend Colin Doctor, and his seven brothers opened the door to This Time Round and began to file in. "I'm in enough trouble without contributing to the delinquency of minors." "Stupid American-written character," said Bill. "This isn't a *bar*, it's a *pub*," Pete deigned to quasi-explain. "Not that the likes of you could contribute anything of significance to *our* delinquency," Jon sniffed. Peri paid them no mind, leading the Doctor brothers into the tavern, leaving Taliesin with the options of either following the adolescentized WHO characters in, or standing outside waiting and feeling foolish. Pathological cheerfulness rivaling the Joker's doesn't allow for much waiting and feeling foolish; Peri knew he'd follow. Amidst the sparse afternoon 'Round crowd, Peri spotted her adult self sitting at a table with Doctor Two, who was wearing the time ring that constantly cycled him through his incarnations; which meant, coupled with his sitting with adult-Peri like they were a couple, the kids from Wells hadn't ventured out of the ambient continuity of the outer continuity of adult-Peri's marriage to all eight Doctors and of their quest for Peri's father, in which ambient continuity adolescent-Peri had spent her day so far - and also meant there would probably be more one-sentence paragraphs. Adult-Peri and adult-Doctor Five (the time ring was working) looked up with expressions bordering on horror to see their adolescent selves approach. "What the hell's going on here?" adult-Peri asked. "We need your help," said adolescent-Peri. "Very well." Adult-Doctor Three reached into a pocket and took out a business card. "They know me at this clinic. They're very discreet." Jon Doctor took the card and tore it in two. "Mind out of the gutter, Uncle." "Who's D'Artagnan?" Doctor Four asked, indicating Taliesin. "Close," grinned Taliesin. "I'm Taliesin of KING ARTHUR IN TIME AND SPACE, the amalgamation of all Merlin's evil." "You're kidding!" said adult-Peri. "Remark that I don't look like Eric Stolz, and I'll send you to Mortality Deferment," Taliesin interrupted. "Whoops!" he chided himself immediately, "shouldn't've warned you." "He's told me that my father's greatest enemy is a Lord Val de Yard, but he's really in cahoots with him," adolescent-Peri explained. "'Val-de-Yard'?" adult-Peri yelped. "Hello," came a familiar voice from somewhere in the vicinity of Taliesin. "Harry Potter parody, is it, eh?" said Doctor One. "You'd think," said Bill Doctor, "but for this." Adolescent-Peri pulled something out of her bookbag. It was a chalice-shaped object, with fiery letters on the bottom even though it was cool to the touch. "Rowling *and* Tolkien," Doctor Four mused. "What do we do?" adult-Peri asked him. "Obviously, at this stage of the game," said Doctor Six, "we generate as much further confusion as we can." "Prat," growled the disembodied voice. But with that Doctor Seven leapt from the table and made for the door, leaving the Peris, his juvenile rejuventations (muttering and poking each other in sheer admiration of their adult panache), and Taliesin nothing to do but follow him. Doctor Eight led them all to the single TARDIS presently in the This Time Round carpark. Doctor Three set coordinates and piloted the TARDIS to a new destination without a word of explanation. When the TARDIS landed Doctor Two threw the doorswitch and led them out again. "We haven't gone anywhere," complained Pete Doctor. "It's the 'Round carpark!" "Look at the sign," said the disembodied voice. Sure enough: the sign over the entrance read, not THIS TIME ROUND, but THIS TABLE ROUND. Catching up with Doctor Eight, the group entered the tavern. The interior was identical to their 'Round, but it was even more sparsely populated: aside from Francois the ogre bartender there were only Nimue and Pelleas, sitting at the same table where the Doctor(s) and adult-Peri had been discovered at This Time Round minutes before. Nimue was in Doctor Eight's suit; and Pelleas wore exactly the same outfit adult-Peri had on right now, but with slacks instead of with a skirt. "We need your help," Doctor Five told them. "Waht's going on?" Adolescent-Peri pushed Colin Doctor ahead of her. "You tell them, my throat's going." "I'll do it," sighed the Valeyard. "Haven't got a throat." After the exposition had been disposed of, Nimue summed up, "So the ease with which the heroine acquired the magical object desired by the villain indicates that there's some master, higher villain -" "That'd be 'lower villain', surely," said Pelleas. "- who's manipulating everyone," Nimue finished. "In which case," said Doctor Three, "the thing to do for the sake of the children's safety was to displace everyone to an entirely irrelevant milieu while we come up with a plan." "Children," snorted Colin Doctor, trailing off a bit at the end, at the echo from all his brothers. "It's not irrelevant!" Nimue snapped. "Of course it is," said Doctor Four. "There's already been a Peri-arc subarc with Peri's father being revealed as a KING ARTHUR IN TIME AND SPACE universe native. This time he must be someone else. So we're safe here." "That doesn't make this an irrlevant milieu!" Nimue shouted. She pointed at Taliesin. "He's one of the subarc villains, he's the KAITAS analog of the arc villain - and he's *from here*!" "Say," exclaimed Taliesin, "you're right!" Adolsecent-Peri had been carrying the goblet and her backpack in her hand since pulling the goblet out of the bag, and now Taliesin grabbed the goblet away from her. At his touch the goblet shot out beams of red light at everyone but Taliesin. Everyone but Taliesin promptly swore and fell over unconscious - all but adolescent-Peri. "What's going on?" she cried. "I dunno," said Taliesin in cheerful confusion. "It ought've worked on you too." "Apparently," the Valeyard's voice-over droned, "Taliesin has plotted all along to have the philospher-prisoner's chamber goblet placed on this plane, knowing somehow that here but only here he could tap into its power. Took me in, too, if that makes you feel better." "So what now?" Peri asked, backing away. As he advanced smiling on her, Taliesin picked up her dropped pack, stowed the goblet in it, and slung it onto his back. "This unprecedented immunity of yours to the goblet's power bears investigation. I must perform mystical experiments on you, experiments that'll probably be agonizing to you. But look on the bright side - they'll be enightening to me." But in backing away Peri had not been retreating. Before she came up against the wall, she reached up and to the right and pulled down, from behind a mounted shield, a fencing foil. She began advancing on Taliesin. His reflexes were good - he bolted for the opposite wall where he retrieved another foil from behind another shield, and by the time she reached him he had parried her thrust. "You owe me twenty bucks," she growled. "Oh no no," Taliesin retorted, "the bet was that you attacked me, which you did." "Welcher," Peri snarled, and the fight was on. Summary for archivist: Humor; THIS TIME ROUND, THEN DO THIS OVER; Peri arc IV the Doctor(s) (regular and teeneage), Peri (regular and teeneage), the Valeyard; Space Taliesin, Space Nimue, Space Pelleas Crosses doubled and buckles swashed.