Doctor Strange in the Labyrinth (a "Doctor Who and the Marvelous World" story)

[muppetwriter]

I've been sitting on this idea while building the unique world I have in Doctor Who and the Marvelous Muppets. This is what I hope to be the first of many stories in a new "companion series" that depicts the Doctor in different settings within the Henson-MCU. I'll start publishing chapters June 27th - Labyrinth's 35th Anniversary! Hope everyone looks forward to it!

 

[muppetwriter]

So, I actually published Chapter One of this tale on the actual 35th anniversary of Labyrinth last month, but it was on some other sites. I'm finally publishing it on here. Enjoy!
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Chapter One: “Through the Looking Glass”​

There are many stories we think we know by heart.

Stories that can change in many ways, creating a new universe of tales.

Tales from a marvelous world…that requires the aid of a storyteller.

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This tale is about a girl named Sarah Williams who once traversed a dangerous, otherworldly labyrinth to rescue her baby brother, stolen by a vicious trickster – a self-proclaimed “Goblin King” known as Jareth.

“They’ve already heard that one,” my dog reminds me.

Ah! But they haven’t heard of what happened to Sarah afterwards – at least, not in that world. In this world – this marvelous world – Sarah grows to be a chosen member of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, an order of sorcerers committed to protecting the Earth from mystical threats.

Sarah learned from the greatest of magic wielders – the Ancient One.

But she was not all-powerful herself. In fact, she will soon need the help of two doctors.

“Doctors? Is she sick?”

She is…or, one of her is.

“You’re speaking in riddles again,” the frustrated dog growls.

It’s no riddle. This tale involves not only two doctors, but two Sarahs as well.

Our story begins one late winter’s night in Central Park where the 48-year-old Sarah fights gallantly against a hooded adversary, another magic user who possesses as much skill and determination as Sarah herself. Unfortunately, this hooded sorcerer is more powerful and easily overwhelms Sarah within a few short sparks of energy too quick for the naked eye to follow.

Her back buried deep in snow and her body wracked with pain, Sarah looks on her opponent, suspecting that her end is about to come. But, instead of killing her there and then, he issues her a warning: “Enjoy the little time you have left, Sarah…because you won’t have much left as a sorceress.”

Although she can’t see his face, Sarah knows for certain she heard his voice somewhere before. And she certainly recognizes the portal he uses to escape through – a portal that can be opened only by the power of a Sling Ring, a small two-finger mystical ring with the ability to create a gateway to another location or even another dimension.

Sarah catches a fleeting glimpse of the hood’s destination through the sparkling gateway. Her eyes, blue as the sky, flares with fear and recognition. It can’t be the same place, she thinks with dread.

Soon after her hooded opponent disappears through the portal, Sarah knows of only one place to go – only one man to turn to at such a dire time: Doctor Strange.

“One of the doctors you mentioned?”

Yes. He resides at the New York Sanctum – one of three across the world.

“Where are the other two?”

London and Hong Kong.

But only the New York Sanctum serves any purpose in this story.

While Sarah battled in Central Park, Strange had already received a visit from the other doctor – the one who goes just by the very title. A Time Lord from another realm, the Doctor every now and then visits the marvelous world either by accident or when necessary.

This visit falls on the latter.

He converses with Doctor Strange on his latest dilemma: meeting an “impossible girl” who is the same person across multiple points in time – his time, specifically. “Maybe she’s just like you – a Time Lord,” Strange hypothesizes.

“No,” the Doctor respectfully disagrees with a headshake. “I’ve had the TARDIS run a bio-scan on her. She’s as human as you are.”

Strange doesn’t know where to start with helping the Doctor. His world is as chaotic and mad as his own. Thankfully, he wouldn’t have to deliberate much longer, with the arrival of Sarah through her own Sling Ring portal. She wastes no time in informing the two doctors of her recent skirmish in Central Park.

“…and after he handed my butt to me, he escaped through a Sling Ring portal,” she concludes.

“Another Zealot like Kaecilius, maybe?” Strange speculates.

“I dunno,” Sarah says, “but what really got me worried was where he escaped to through the Sling Ring portal: Jareth’s Labyrinth.”

“The same Labyrinth you went to when you were 16?” Strange inquires.

Sarah verifies with a shaky nod. “I think whoever this guy is, he’s using time travel to take away my magic…or worse – erase me from history!”

On this suspicion, Strange turns to the Doctor and says, “This sounds like your department. Any chance we can use your time machine to take us back to 1986 at the time Sarah was forced into Jareth’s Labyrinth?”

The Doctor is more than willing to assist the sorcerers, but he’s at liberty to caution them, “My TARDIS can go anywhere and anytime in the universe, but the multiverse is a whole can of worms entirely. It doesn’t quite have the capabilities it usually has within my dimension as it should in others.”

“Then we’ll give you a boost,” Strange presents him with the Time Stone – the Infinity Stone stored within the Eye of Agamotto that hung around Strange’s neck. He entrusts this powerful gem to the Doctor, knowing it will grant his TARDIS machine with the pick-me-up it requires to travel beyond the boundaries of space and time.

“What does ‘TARDIS’ stand for anyway?”

Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

“And you know that how?”

Another story for another time.

The transference of power between the Time Stone and the Doctor’s TARDIS works to marvelous succession, bringing the Time Lord and the two sorcerers to the very Labyrinth Sarah thought to have long put behind her for 32 years. Even as she steps out of the TARDIS to take in the all-too-familiar territory, she is haunted by the memories: the hedonistic Fireys, that horrid Bog of Eternal Stench, the goblins, and the Goblin King himself.

“Uh…excuse me?” a timid voice addresses the three visitors.

Sarah recognizes it instantly, slowly turning to face the teenage girl staring back at her with eyes, blue as the sky, amassed with confusion and apprehension.

For this teenage girl was Sarah herself.

TO BE CONTINUED...​

 

[muppetwriter]

Sorry to have kept everyone waiting for an update on this Tale from the Marvelous World. I wanted to wait until I was properly finished to post more. And, as of today, I'm glad to say that the story is complete and will be updated starting today with the next four parts! Enjoy the next chapter now!
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Chapter Two: “What’s Past Is Present”

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“Two Sarahs? How is that possible?”

Easy. One is the past Sarah and the other is the present one.

“‘Easy,’ you say. Hmph!”

But two Sarahs in the Labyrinth wasn’t the only concern. At the center of the labyrinth stood a castle, and in that castle lived a gathering of goblins, and that gathering of goblins was led by a goblin king…

…and that goblin king’s name was Jareth.

“The one who trapped the past Sarah in the labyrinth?”

The very same one, indeed.

A charming man to the eyes, but a treacherous tyrant to the heart.

Jareth kept watch over every part of his labyrinth from his crystal orbs, such as the one he and his underlings looked on the moment Strange, the Doctor, and the elder Sarah arrived.

And Jareth was not at all pleased to see one of them there in his labyrinth.

“That accursed Master of the Mystic Arts,” he sneered, his crystal ball centered on the face of Strange. “The man who thwarted the great Dormammu has now been brought to my labyrinth…she brought him to my labyrinth!”

“She? Surely he doesn’t mean…”

Yes, he surely does. Jareth blamed Sarah on Strange’s presence.

“But which Sarah? The past one or the present one?”

Good question.

“And because she brought him to my labyrinth, she forfeits the game and therefore will never see her baby brother again!” Jareth declared in one breath.

“So he blames the past Sarah. He is a treacherous tyrant!”

“Oh, dear Sarah,” the Goblin King said. “No good ever comes from cheating.”

“She didn’t cheat! You’re the one who’s cheating!”

​

Jareth would do anything to keep Toby, Sarah’s infant brother, all to himself.

He would even use the trickery of the labyrinth against our three heroes – and the young Sarah – such as causing the Doctor’s TARDIS to fall through a trap door and through a series of tunnels that brought it straight to Jareth’s castle.

“He knows we’re here!” the elder Sarah alarmed. “We have to move!”

“Screw this!” exclaimed Strange, who used the power of his Sling Ring to open a channel of portals that would lead them directly out of the labyrinth.

“Ha! Smart move, Doctor Strange!”

Brilliant as it was, it still angered the Goblin King, who perceived it as a mockery of his labyrinth. In retaliation, he opened two more trap doors beneath our heroes, separating them. The young Sarah and the Doctor fell into a dungeon within Jareth’s castle, while Strange and the elder Sarah ended up somewhere beneath the labyrinth.

Somewhere Sarah had been before.

“I know this place,” she observed, illuminating the dark space with the spark of her Tao Mandala shield, along with Strange.

“Where are we?” he asked her. He noticed how cluttered the area was – and rather smelly. “Whoever’s place this is, they certainly live like a pig.”

“Hey!” a gruff voice bellowed within the darkness. “This is my home!”

Sarah knew that voice. She intensified the light of her Tao Mandala shield, illuminating the rest of the space inside the cavernous area. In front of her and Strange stood a familiar dwarf, his very presence bringing a smile to Sarah’s beautifully aging face.

“Hoggle,” she uttered.

For a moment, the dwarf flew into a fit of rage. “Argh! I told you, it’s…” But then he calmed, once he realized that she pronounced his name correctly. “Hey, you said it right that time.”

Sarah chuckled. “Took me awhile at first, but it rolls off the tongue now.”

Hoggle stared at her face more closely, finally noticing lines and creases that weren’t there before. “Sarah?” he said, overwhelmed with confusion. “Why do you look so much older? It ain’t been but a few minutes since I last saw you! Ya haven’t been wandering the labyrinth for that long, have ya?”

“It’s hard to explain, Hoggle,” Sarah told her old friend. “I’m from the future.”

“A future where you’re still trapped in Jareth’s labyrinth?” Hoggle interpreted with a sense of mortification.

“No, I did get out,” Sarah eased his concern. “With a little help from you, Ludo, and Sir Didymus.”

“With who and Sir What?!”

Sarah had forgotten entirely that this version of Hoggle had yet to experience the rest of her original journey in the labyrinth, so he hadn’t yet met the other characters who he would call friends, just as Sarah had become his friend.

Meanwhile, Strange was more attentive to their current situation. “We’ve been separated from the Doctor and your teen counterpart,” he informed Sarah. “And that’s only created more problems for us, considering your past has already been altered from our presence here.”

“Not to mention we’ve lost our Sling Rings,” Sarah indicated their bare fingers.

“From the fall, no doubt,” Strange presumed. “Now we have to get out of this place the same way you did before.”

“No prob,” Sarah acknowledged. “I already know the trick behind getting out of Hoggle’s place.” She surprised the grumpy dwarf when she took an unhinged door, planted it against the nearest cavern wall, and turned the lock and key to open a doorway leading outside. It was a method only Hoggle knew himself. So how did Sarah know about it, he asked himself.

“Older and wiser. Heh, heh!”

Unfortunately, what Sarah and Strange didn’t know was that Hoggle had possession of their missing Sling Rings.

“What?! Why would he? I thought he was Sarah’s friend!”

He had no other choice. He was under orders…from Jareth the Goblin King.

TO BE CONTINUED...​

 

[muppetwriter]

Chapter Three: “The Bill Comes Due”
​

“Oh, no! What’s Hoggle thinking workin’ for that ol’ skinflint Goblin King?!”

He was thinking only of the consequences for not obeying the Goblin King: a lifetime in the Bog of Eternal Stench! Ugh! It was horrible for Hoggle just to imagine! But he didn’t want to be responsible for Sarah – even her elder counterpart – to be trapped in Jareth’s labyrinth forever.

Meanwhile, inside the Goblin King’s castle at the center of the labyrinth, the Doctor and the young Sarah were paid a visit in the dungeon by Jareth himself, who brought along Sarah’s baby brother, Toby.

“Our contest is over,” he told her. “You forfeited when you got the Sorcerer Supreme involved!”

“That’s not fair!” the young Sarah refuted.

“You have no right to speak of fairness!” Jareth stormed.

“But I never even met that Strange guy!” Sarah appealed.

“Not yet, you haven’t. But, in spite of the forfeit, I will allow your baby brother to stay here with you in the dungeon…until I require of him again.”

And so, the Goblin King left Toby with Sarah and the Doctor.

Sarah was relieved to hold her baby brother again, even if it was under the grimmest of circumstances. He made fussy babbling noises that were just that to mortal ears. But, to the ears of the Doctor (a Time Lord), he said, “Glad to be away from that scary old lady and the rest of the monsters!”

His translation of her brother’s babbling amused the young Sarah. “You speak baby?!”

“He speaks baby?!”

“Of course I can speak baby,” the Doctor proudly proclaimed.

Sarah scoffed. “That’s silly.”

“That’s downright ridiculous!”

But it couldn’t have been more silly or ridiculous than everything else Sarah has witnessed within the labyrinth in the last few hours. Speaking of which, back in the labyrinth, our two Masters of the Mystic Arts and one dwarf wandered until they happened on a sight that the elder Sarah recognized: her old friend, Ludo, ensnared by a goblin trap.

It was just as Sarah remembered…and yet something was different.

Ludo was no longer being tortured by goblins. Instead, he was suspended above a Sling Ring portal leading straight into the Dark Dimension.

“This isn’t right,” Sarah observed in a hush.

Suddenly, Strange fell unconscious – a temporary coma spell placed on him by a hooded figure...the same hooded figure Sarah fought in Central Park. He removed his hood to reveal the hardened face he kept hidden underneath.

It was a face Sarah was mortified to have recognized. “Mordo?!”

Yes…Karl Mordo. A former Master of the Mystic Arts that Sarah had not seen since the Kaecilius incident.

“Why did you attack me?” she asked him.

“To right a wrong in this universe,” Mordo told her.

“Is that why you’re here, tampering with my past?”

“It’s my mission to restore balance by stripping rogue sorcerers of their magic. The conflict with Kaecilius and the betrayal of the Ancient One were motivators.”

“I’m nothing like Kaecilius! I will never turn on the other sorcerers!”

“But you will, Sarah. You are on a path much similar and potentially deadlier as your magic grows stronger. The bill always comes due for sorcerers like you… and I will do anything to protect the whole of reality from sorcerers like you.”

It was then Hoggle stepped in Sarah’s defense and said, “Now listen here! This older Sarah has turned out alright, even after bein’ in Jareth’s labyrinth!”

His words only amused Mordo. “You allow a thief to defend your honor?”

“Hoggle may have once betrayed me to Jareth, but he’s proven himself as a trustworthy friend,” Sarah told Mordo, “and he hasn’t stolen anything of value from me in this new flow of time.”

“Is that so?” Mordo remarked in confidence and followed under the same breath, “Then where is your Sling Ring?”

His question prompted Sarah to look hesitantly and questioningly on Hoggle.

It was a brief glance, and when she turned back to where Mordo stood, she discovered that he had vanished, along with the Sling Ring portal that was beneath Ludo, who was subsequently freed from his trap.

Strange awakened from his coma thereafter, experiencing the worst headache of his life. “Ugh! What happened?”

Unfortunately, Sarah was too preoccupied in confronting Hoggle to explain.

“Hoggle,” she guardedly addressed her old friend, “where are our Sling Rings?”

She could see the guilt in his bulbous, wart-ridden face, his bushy eyebrows arching upwards. “I…It wasn’t my fault…Jareth made me steal them…” He produced the stolen Sling Rings in his big open palm, much to the fury of Stephen Strange.

“I should’ve guessed!” Strange bellowed as he snatched their Sling Rings back from the dwarf. “You were Jareth’s underling spy the whole time!”

Sarah was quick to speak in her old friend’s defense. “He was only following his orders. He’s done it before and still came through for me.”

“Sure…and that just makes stealing our rings all O.K.?”

As Strange and Sarah bickered over Hoggle’s moral value, the entire labyrinth began to transform all around them.

“What was happening? What’s Jareth up to now?”

What every sore loser does in a game: switch up the board.

TO BE CONTINUED...​

 

[muppetwriter]

“As The World Falls Down”
​

Placing his labyrinth in the mirror dimension, a parallel dimension where the laws of physics no longer apply, Jareth made it that much more complicated for Doctor Strange and the elder Sarah to reach his castle. Back in the dungeon, the Doctor and the young Sarah witnessed the change through the barred windows and realized that Jareth was not going to allow any of them to escape.

“What a sour sport he is!”

“You know, in any other situation, my sonic screwdriver would allow us to escape this dungeon,” the Doctor shared with his cellmate. “But, with the only door out of here being made of wood, it’s ineffective in this situation.”

This prompted Sarah to propose, “What if your ‘sonic screwdriver’ could be fooled into thinking the door wasn’t made of wood.”

“Come again?” the Doctor reacted curiously to her proposal.

“The logics of this world don’t apply to the real world,” Sarah elaborated.

His curiosity piqued, the Doctor gave it a try. He aimed his alien tool at the lock of the dungeon door and it whirred and whirred until the lock clicked, successfully freeing the Doctor, Sarah, and Toby and allowing them to wander the corridors of Jareth’s castle.

“Finally, some good news!”

And while they wandered the castle, out in the twisted labyrinth, Strange and the elder Sarah’s Sling Rings – recovered from the guilt-ridden Hoggle – were practically useless to them, as moving through one portal only returned them back to where they started. Frustrated, Strange continued to place blame on Hoggle for their predicament. “If it wasn’t for Hogsmeade over here, we’d be out of here by now.”

Strange’s deliberate butchering of his name infuriated the dwarf. “It’s Hoggle!” he roared. “And I’ve just about had enough of you!”

“And what’re you gonna do? Bite my kneecaps?” Strange taunted.

“That ain’t a bad idea!” Hoggle accepted the challenge.

“How could they bicker at a time like this? Don’t they know that they have to work together to get out of there?”

It did become tedious, particularly for Sarah.

Between being trapped again in Jareth’s labyrinth (and with no possible chance for escape) and the back-and-forth between Strange and Hoggle, Sarah was pushed to her limit. “ENOUGH!” she howled, and as she did, she unleashed a dark power that rearranged a section of the labyrinth.

And within that section was another old friend of Sarah’s: Sir Didymus and his canine steed, Ambrosius. They were trapped within an inescapable stone enclosure, until Sarah freed them.

“Thank you, milady!” Sir Didymus said. “You must be quite the powerful sorcerer to control this accursed labyrinth. I am now in your debt.”

Though Sir Didymus and Ambrosius were a comforting sight to Sarah, the happy reunion was tarnished when Strange confronted her on the dark magic she used to control the labyrinth. “Only those with the power of the Dark Dimension have a stronger control to fold and warp space in reality.”

This haunted poor Sarah, as it proved Mordo to have been right about her path.

In spite of that, she feigned ignorance. “I…I was just upset over the inability for you and Hoggle to work together in getting us out of this place!”

Sarah wouldn’t have to feign ignorance for much longer, as the heroes were suddenly pursued by goblin soldiers sent by Jareth. They fled accordingly, until they reached a dead end. Luckily, Ludo used his ability to summon rocks with a mighty howl, toppling a large stone wall over the goblin soldiers.

That marvelous feat revealed a clear path into the Goblin City. There, they encountered more resistance, though Jareth’s goblin army was no match for two Masters of the Mystic Arts, who vanquished their oppressors with their magic.

All seemed to go well for Sarah and her allies, until she fell through a Sling Ring portal that opened right along her path, dropping her into the Dark Dimension…

…where she found herself face-to-face once again with Karl Mordo.

“Oh, no! Not again!”

TO BE CONTINUED...​

 

[muppetwriter]

And now for the epic conclusion!
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“Sorceress Supreme”
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“I’ve had enough of that ‘Mordo’ guy!”

Yes, and so did Sarah. Trapped in the Dark Dimension! It was the last place any Master of the Mystic Arts wished to be!

Meanwhile, Doctor Strange found himself leading a charge into Jareth’s castle with one member of his party missing. No, make that two members. “Where’s Hogbreath?” he asked in an ill-mannered reference to Hoggle, who was oddly nowhere to be found. Strange was quick to make a hasty conclusion: “He probably ran away – the coward. No matter. We can still do this with just the four of us.”

“Right you are, sir!” Sir Didymus daringly concurred.

“Sir Didymus, you and Ludo go and find Sarah,” Strange commanded.

“But I thought the fair maiden sorceress fell through that portal,” Sir Didymus recollected. “You expect us to follow after her the same way?”

“PORTAL…BAD!” Ludo roared.

At first, Strange did not understand their confusion, but he immediately clarified his command. “No, no. Go and find the other Sarah.”

“There are two?” Sir Didymus remarked, even more puzzled now.

“Yes, there’s one much younger than the other,” Strange told him. “She’s with a man in a bowtie who calls himself ‘Doctor’. They should be somewhere in this castle, possibly held captive in a dungeon.”

“I see,” Sir Didymus finally comprehended. “And what shall you be doing while we are on this task, brave sir?”

“I’m going to find Jareth…and kick the crap out of him,” Strange declared.

So, the three heroes split up – Strange to confront Jareth and Sir Didymus (riding on Ambrosius) and Ludo to wander the halls of the castle endlessly, seeing that it was more of a labyrinth than the one outside, until they quite literally bumped into the very people they were searching for: the Doctor, the young Sarah, and Toby.

“It is you – the young fair maiden sorceress!” Sir Didymus exclaimed.

“What?” Sarah reacted bafflingly to his perception of her. She eyed the two strange characters, who she met under different circumstances in another timeline. The big, furry horned one terrified her at first, but then she saw the sweet gentleness of his eyes. And the fox-terrier wearing an eyepatch and riding a sheepdog that closely resembled Sarah’s own dog, Merlin – she found him quite dashing. “Who are you two?”

“We have come to free you,” Sir Didymus told her.

“A bit late for that,” the Doctor uttered. “But you can help us get out of here.”

Of course, the Doctor was most of the help. They followed his sonic screwdriver, which was connected to his TARDIS, which was held in the throne room…where they also found a certain sneaky dwarf.

“Hogwart!” Sarah called to him.

“It’s Hoggle!” he grumbled. “You said it right earlier!”

“Did I?” Sarah had no remembrance of that moment, mostly because it was not this Sarah who was involved in it. And Hoggle came to the same conclusion upon closer examination of this Sarah in front of him. She was young and fresh-faced, not the old and wise woman he abandoned near the castle entrance.

“You abandoned us near the castle entrance!” Sir Didymus accused.

“I was hoping to use this thing…” Hoggle motioned to the Doctor’s TARDIS. “…to save the older Sarah! He’s got her trapped and it’s all my fault!”

“Who’s got her trapped?” the young Sarah asked. “Jareth?”

“No, not Jareth,” Hoggle said. “Mordo!”

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In the Dark Dimension, the confrontation between Sarah and Mordo commenced.
​

“I’m going to leave you powerless here,” he threatened her. “You’ll no longer be a threat to our world.”

“That’s not gonna happen, Karl!” Sarah vowed.

She once again engaged in mystical combat with Mordo. Their battle much fiercer than their contest in Central Park. The only difference being that Sarah’s power was much stronger, overwhelming Mordo.

“It’s because they’re in the Dark Dimension, isn’t it?”

Indeed, it is.

“Ha, ha! Ol’ Mordo didn’t see that coming!”

It was a tactical error on his part and a monumental advantage on Sarah’s. She overpowered him with the utmost ease, rendering him to an exhausted state on the ground and stealing his Sling Ring from him.

“You are just like Kaecilius! You will kill us all!” the fearful Mordo decreed.

For a moment, Sarah considered leaving Mordo trapped in the Dark Dimension for all of what he had done to her – tampering with her past, endangering her future, and (worst of all) hurting her friends.

“And did she?”

No, she didn’t. She tossed his Sling Ring back and told him, “My purity is my strength.” She then returned back to Jareth’s labyrinth, leaving Mordo defeated and finished…for now.

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Back in Jareth’s castle, Strange’s battle with Jareth was more of a contest of wit than that of magic. Both men managed to outsmart the other, using the contorted structure of the castle to their benefit. It was only when Jareth once again manipulated the reality around them to catch Strange off guard.
​

“Too weak to fight me without cheating, Jerry?” Strange taunted.

“This isn’t cheating, Strange,” Jareth said. “This is merely raising the stakes.”

Amid their contest, the Doctor’s TARDIS materialized within the shifting space. The Time Lord – with the young Sarah, Hoggle, Sir Didymus, Ludo, and Toby in tow – attempted to assist Strange, only for Jareth to manipulate the space around the ship to make it impossible for them to get to Strange and vice versa.

But just when it seemed as if this madness Jareth created would make him the victor, the elder Sarah arrived and amplified the power of her Sling Ring to bring Jareth’s castle and his labyrinth out of the mirror dimension.

Seeing how much more powerful she had become than even himself, Jareth pleaded to her, “Take me up on the offer I gave to your younger counterpart. Stay with me in the labyrinth as my queen.”

Sarah smirked at her old adversary, who she had now surpassed in power.

“No, Jareth,” she refused. “My purity is my strength, not the darkness within me.”

And on this, Jareth the Goblin King relented and permitted Sarah and the others to leave from his labyrinth, but not without one final warning: “As long as our worlds remain entwined, I will always be watching you.”

“So will I,” Sarah deflected.

----------------------​

Returning back to 1986 in the Doctor’s TARDIS, the young Sarah was glad to have been back home, along with her baby brother. But she lamented of the adventure she left behind in the labyrinth, “It was never a proper adventure for me…not like the one you had before it all changed.” She gestured to her elder counterpart.
​

“Don’t worry about that, honey,” the elder Sarah told her. “Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus will always be there for you when you need them.”

The young Sarah left overjoyed by this assurance.

Alone with only her and the Doctor, Strange addressed Sarah on her brief time in the Dark Dimension. “Did you ever see the face of the guy who’d been tormenting you?”

Sarah wasn’t sure he was ready to know the truth about Mordo yet.

“No,” she fibbed. “I never caught his identity.”

Accepting her answer, Strange went on to another matter: “I’m confident you can control the connection you have to the Dark Dimension. The Ancient One did so before you. Shortly before she died, she told me, ‘Sometimes one must break the rules in order to serve the greater good.’”

Sarah scoffed and whispered to herself, “I wish Mordo saw it that way.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“So what did become of Mordo?”

That is a story that isn’t mine to tell.

THE END