Infinite DC

Skips witnessed much in his immortal life.

For this rationale, and his reputable knowledge of Time Lord Technology, he should not have been so awestruck at the console room of Neas’s T.A.R.D.I.S.

And yet, he was.

“Whoa,” he articulated.

“Still quite the eyeful, isn’t it?” Neas teased, positioning himself at the controls to begin the recalibrations.

“It is really big on the inside,” the yeti appraised.

“I’d give you the whole tour, but there’s too much that needs to be done at the moment,” Neas said, his eyes glued to the console. “Those creatures broke out inside the T.A.R.D.I.S. and went right away to tearing everything apart. Thankfully, it’s nothing that can’t be repaired.”

“What creatures were they?”

“Gremlins.”

Snaps and pops resonating within the console drove the Time Lord away from the controls. They were not from his fiddling, which only implored him more to crouch down and pry open a ventilation cover beneath the panel. The intricate wiring exposed, he located a familiar small, furry white-and-brown creature tangled up. Its pointy ears drooped sadly in being discovered.

“Aww, Giz,” Neas tenderly said.

He reached in and helped set the poor little creature free.

Bringing it out, he heard it cry in a petite voice, “Bright light! Bright light!”

“Oh!” Neas yelped over his carelessness. “I’m so sorry, Giz.”

Quickly, he hid the creature into his leather jacket before turning a large knob on the console that dimmed the room lighting.

“There,” said Neas, taking his little companion out from his jacket and cradling it in his arms like a baby. “Much better, right?”

Skips watched him treat the unusual creature with the utmost kindness.

“What is that?” He pointed and questioned.

“It’s my Mogwai,” replied Neas.

“What’s a Mogwai?”

The Time Lord shrugged. “Truthfully, I have no idea. I’ve held responsibility over lil’ Gizmo here since I had my original body…”

Eight Incarnations Ago…

Candace was relieved to escape the busy Chinatown street corner just as soon as she reached inside an antique store. Thanks to the translation circuits in her T.A.R.D.I.S., she knew this for certain. The Chinese symbols imprinted on the entrance door deciphered “Wing’s Antiques.”

Candles lit much of the shop.

The antiques were almost as old as she was.

She recognized a few from visits to time periods on Earth with the Doctor. An ancient gold dragon chalice here, a samurai sword there. If she had the money, she would purchase the chalice and find a place for it in the T.A.R.D.I.S. as a memento. She foresaw many to come in her new journey ahead.

On her arrival, Mr. Wing – the elderly shopkeeper – was engaged in an argument with his grandson, a boy who looked to heavily embrace the American culture in his New York Yankees baseball cap.

“You should not have sold Mogwai to that inventor,” Wing told his grandson.

“But, Grandfather, we made two hundred dollars from him!”

“Mogwai dangerous to society. Just listen.”

Wing turned up the volume on an old radio near them.

Candace’s ears perked at the unusual broadcast: calls of strange creatures terrorizing a town by the name of Kingston Falls. At first, the radio D.J. believed the calls to be a hoax, inappropriate to the Christmas season, until he himself was attacked on-air.

“You see the danger that comes in irresponsibility over Mogwai?” Wing scolded to his grandson. “It must be brought back here, where it is safe.”

Admittedly, curiosity got the better of Candace.

“I’ll get this Mogwai for you, sir,” she said, making her presence there in the antique shop known.

His eyes, mismatched in color with one pale blind eye and the other dark brown, centered on her.

She stiffened like a board from the judgmental stare they gave.

“You can trust me,” she added, hoping to change his expression.

Wing’s demeanor did shift to slight amusement, chuckling at her assurance.

“Trust what caused misfortune,” he said. “Trust betrayed by inventor…and grandson. They do with Mogwai what society has done with all of nature’s gifts: they do not understand.”

Candace snickered. “Tell me about it. A prime example in the corruption of Earth humans.”

Her intriguing statement drew much interest in Wing, his focus on the middle-aged woman growing with more intent. He advanced on her, shadowed by her distinguished height. She was rather fit for her age, her biceps stretching the sleeves of her long red knitted coat. She carried the appearance of a fierce warrior, even in her beautifully aging face.

But there was something more that caught his eye.

“You are not of this world?”

The jig was up. Curse that Gallifreyan pride of hers!

“No,” she confessed to the old shopkeeper. “I’m not from Earth.”

He smiled big. “Neither is Mogwai.”

Candace could not determine if it was useful information or not. By the species name alone, she figured that much out on her own.

“I make deal with you,” Wing obliged. “You retrieve Mogwai from Kingston Falls, I give him to you.”

She balked at the proposal. “Give him to me?! Why would you allow me to have responsibility over a dangerous alien?”

“Mogwai only dangerous when in care of human beings…and, as you say, not from Earth.”

It was with great reluctance that Candace accepted the old shopkeeper’s deal.

She was not even certain what to anticipate in this “Mogwai” of his, if such an animal of intergalactic origin was capable of terrorizing an entire town. Undoubtedly, dumping it off on the moon would be the first thing she would do after capturing it.

Her T.A.R.D.I.S. materialized at the snowy town square of Kingston Falls.

The horrifying aftermath of a riot was an unwelcoming sight upon stepping out from her ship.

Vehicles and Christmas trees were overturned or burning, shop windows were broken, and vulgar graffiti was spread across the sides of buildings. It was hard to imagine one being could cause so much destruction.

I might as well be back in the war, Candace ruminated.

Further past the apocalyptic scene, she spotted a police station.

It was the best place to begin.

She hustled her way there, hoping that the town’s sheriff or his deputy were available to offer assistance, if they were not already on the case.

To her disappointment, walking inside, the station was devoid of any activity – save for one teenager with dark curly hair and a bandaged, bleeding hand. He looked directly across the dimly lit space towards Candace, practically amazed to see her there.

“Who are you?” He asked.

“Someone here to help,” she answered, frowning on the boy’s disheveled appearance. “What on earth happened to you?”

Her inquiry confused him. “You mean you haven’t seen what’s happened outside?”

“I know from the radio that you have a gremlin problem.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Finally, someone believes what’s going on. I tried to convince Sheriff Frank and Deputy Brent, but they didn’t believe me, not even after I showed them Gizmo.”

“Gizmo?” Candace repeated the name in curiosity.

“He’s a pet my father gave me as a Christmas present,” the boy said. “A Mogwai.”

Candace smirked. This was just the kid she was looking for.

“What’s your name?” She enquired to him.

“Billy,” he replied. “Billy Peltzer.”

“Well, Billy, I should let you know that I’m here just for that Mogwai, seeing that he’s the leader of these vicious gremlins,” she spoke with much authority, hoping it would make her mission easier.

“Gizmo is not their leader. He only made them when he was accidentally splashed with water. They multiply when they’re wet. C’mon, I’ll show you how one’s supposed to look like.”

He led her into the sheriff’s office, which seemed even dimmer compared with the rest of the station.

Melodic chirping sounded from within the darkened room.

There was just enough lighting for Candace to see what made it: a tiny, furry brown-and-white creature with large, pointy pinkish ears.

It sat on the sheriff’s desk, squeaking its sweet serenade.

Candace’s hearts softened when her eyes met with those of the Mogwai.

“He’s…precious.”

She was hard-pressed to believe such a charming living being could be as dangerous as Mr. Wing made it out to be.

“It’s only when they’re fed after midnight when they turn vicious,” Billy informed her. “Look, I don’t know who sent you or where you came from, but we’ve got to stop these things or they’ll destroy the entire town!”

The young man’s dread was evident in his address.

If Candace was the only hope he had in this dire time, then she no longer had the option of turning back.

“Let’s get to my T.A.R.D.I.S., so we can discover the exact locations of these gremlins,” she instructed.

Billy frowned. “Your…what?!”

A few short moments later, he got his clarification on the unfamiliar dwelling when he stepped into it.

“It’s bigger on the inside,” observed the daunted teenager.

“Bright light! Bright light!”

Candace heard the little Mogwai crying out in Billy’s green backpack.

“What does he mean?”

“It’s the lights,” Billy explained. “They can kill him.”

The Time Lady jolted in alert at this, hurriedly motioning over the controls and dimming the console room’s radiance to a more accommodating level. In response, Gizmo’s tiny furred head poked out of the backpack, surveying the large new space.

“If it’s lights that can kill his evil brothers, then that might be our best defense,” Candace tactfully noted. “How did you say they looked after their midnight feeding?”

“Green and scaly with fangs,” Billy depicted. “A lot like bipedal lizards.”

Candace proceeded to input his description into the T.A.R.D.I.S. computer.

“O.K.,” she confidently said. “Now we just use the scanners to pinpoint their precise spot in the town.”

The view screen scrambled on, projecting the disturbing footage of venomous monsters fitting in with Billy’s interpretation creating mass havoc throughout Kingston Falls. The live feed played from assorted areas, including one that Billy recognized.

“Wait, that’s Dorry’s Tavern!” Billy cried. “Kate’s working there right now!”

They could see the raucous scene that unfolded onscreen.

A multitude of gremlins getting drunk off alcohol, smoking an entire pack of cigarettes, and performing in other foul activities around a young barmaid who could only satisfy their needs to keep herself from harm.

“We’ve gotta help her!” Billy pleaded.

“Don’t worry,” Candace reassured. “In the T.A.R.D.I.S., we can reach her in less than a few—”

“Man! This place is awesome!”

Turning her attention to the new party that entered the picture, Candace was disconcerted to find an anthropomorphic raccoon snooping his way in.

“What’re you doing here?!”

Present Time

“Rigby! You just interrupted an important story!”

“Sorry, Skips, but it wasn’t my idea to come here.”

Neas and Skips noticed the rest of the park crew following after Rigby.

“How is this even possible?!” Benson questioned of the differentiation in inner and outer dimensions. “It was no bigger than a fountain outside, but inside it’s…it doesn’t make sense!”

The last to enter was a fully conscious Shel.

She rushed immediately over to Neas, seeing Gizmo in his arms and taking the Mogwai into hers.

“Oh, Giz, you O.K., lil’ guy?” She asked, deeply concerned.

“I found him hiding in the inner workings of the console,” Neas told her. “He was scared half to death.”

“Can’t blame the poor lil’ thing,” said Shel, “after the gremlin attack that brought us here in the first place.”

“Gremlin attack?!” A perturbed Mordecai squealed.

Unexpectedly, a distinctive, sonorous, ringing sound resembling a large church bell resounded all over.

“What is that?!” Muscle Man yelled over the deafening racket.

Neas and Shel focused on each other, exchanging worrisome gazes.

“Danger,” they unanimously responded.