They’ve been veeeerrrry careful. The problems caused by the eighth Doctor’s TARDIS appearing in the Pro-Fun Trolls’ TARDIS have been sorted (for now, at least), and their respective dimensions have settled down. Now, his companions are standing at the buffet.
The red-haired girl who arrived with the eighth Doctor burps. “Sorry,” she says. “Bit of indigestion…”
The tall, thin guy with straggly brown hair nods. Then looks up in shock. “How…?”
“You don’t want to know, Fitz.”
The man considers this. Then shudders.
Meanwhile, deep inside the Eighth’s current TARDIS…
“What the HELL is this?!”
When the Eighth’s TARDIS materialised, two people had the misfortune to be standing at the point she’d chosen. And thanks to the rather bizarre interfaces that can occur when one TARDIS materialises inside another… they’ve been thrown inside her.
But which unfortunate duo were thrown inside? Not the party’s hostess, or Anubis, or the Firefly. The seventh Doctor and Benny are still happily trundling around, as well as the Lurkers, who occasionally look in on the Rad-wah madness.
The Eighth and Fourth Doctors are happily discussing their mutual shoe collections. Not them.
Hmm.
However, due to certain unforeseen circumstances (well, unforeseen by everyone bar the TARDIS)… the Eighth’s TARDIS is no longer quite what it was.
For one thing, its console room looks like a Lovecraftian nightmare; all in black, sharp edges, curiously… organic extrusions, metal gantries surrounding a black central console, with a crystalline central column, which glows rather… unpleasantly.
The Doctor doesn’t want it like this. He’d prefer the old-style steampunk look back. However, the TARDIS likes it like this, so it stays.
She’s been in something of a Goth mood recently. Helps give her a sense of identity, especially with recent events.
“This is a TARDIS?!”
So…
…not many people are entirely familiar with her new controls, given the majority now all look highly dangerous to the touch. (They’re not, but…)
This has just had unforeseen consequences.
Because one of the figures has just started fiddling with the controls, looking for the door handle. He pushes a certain button…
“Oooooh…” the girl says. “That hurt.”
Her companion looks at her worriedly. “You sure you’re all right? Maybe I should get one of the Doc–”
Then a wheezing, groaning sound begins. It’s not coming from any of the TARDISes outside, or from a new arrival… but from the barn itself.
Thanks to the rather odd interface between the Doctor’s TARDIS and the Pro-Fun Trolls’ TARDIS, a feedback system of sorts has been established. So when somebody moves one, the other comes along for the ride.
Somebody’s tried to move the eighth Doctor’s TARDIS.
The barn dematerialises.
And with a wheezing, groaning sound, the barn-TARDIS materialises.
On Gallifrey.
Needless to say, this was not in anybody’s plans…
There is general confusion as a large roomful of Pro-Fun Trolls and assorted guests recover from the unexpected materialisation.
Several of the braver partygoers, with Alryssa in the lead, pop their heads out the doors.
“Oh, bugger,” says Thomas, the frock-coated young man with whom Alryssa was dancing earlier.
“Speak for yourself,” comes the reply.
“Now what?” asks Chas, waving his party popper around, forcing people to duck in case it goes off unexpectedly.
“Umm. Do you know… I think we’re on Gallifrey.”
Alryssa turns to give her significant other a Look. He shrugs, helplessly. “No shit, Sherlock!” she grins. She decides to take the risk and goes out to explore. Thomas hesitates a moment and follows, a few other brave souls venturing out to see…
Back inside, the erstwhile Firefly does a quick survey of the situation as he makes his way back to the stage and Eloise.
“Well, I’ve checked out the barn, and it’s stable,” he beams. Ignoring multiple nearby groans, he asks, “Hey, lofty ideas anyone?”
He notices the troll looking past him, and follows her gaze to the wall next to the large exit doors. Where previously hung a festive row of simple iron horseshoes, there now hangs a line of stylized wrought-iron letters. It reads:
GALLIFREY ~ LOCAL DATELINE 5939.6 ~ RASSILON ERA
The fair-haired Doctor with the patchwork coat has also noticed, for he approaches with a perturbed expression on his face. “Do you know what this means?” he asks, idly rubbing his cat badge.
“I can pay my phone bill on time now?” suggests the Firefly hopefully.
Eloise and the Doctor scowl at Rufus simultaneously. The troll, for one, has serious doubts that Groucho Marx’s humor would go over very well in their current time and place.
She gazes again at her TARDIS’s readout… their current time and place… with the Doctor’s question still swimming in her head. “Erm, I’m afraid not,” she finally admits. “Earth history was only my third best subject in high school, never mind Gallifreyan history… Please don’t tell me,” she ventures to guess, “that we’ve gone back before the invention of TARDISes, because, if so…” The consequences are too horrific to contemplate and she shudders involuntarily. “At least, tell me that Einstein had it completely inside out when he conducted his thought experiments, and time is not so linear that all our time machines will cease to exist…” Of all the places in the universe, this is the last one in which she wants to be stranded…
“Well, that’s one of your wishes granted, my dear lady…” the sixth Doctor says. “TARDISes are perfectly capable of travelling to a point before their own construction. The problem is when they materialise in the same place as an earlier version…” He shudders. “Messy… No. This means something altogether worse. This is near a nexus point in my – our – life. And thanks to a certain paradox in my – our – past…” (here, he shoots a dark look at his eighth self, who seems more concerned with his companion) “…there is a very real chance we could end up altering the Universe’s history. With horrific consequences…”
“So… where are we?” the increasingly nervous troll asks.
The sixth Doctor takes a deep breath. “This is the point–”
“Don’t…” interrupts the seventh.
“He has to,” the eighth says. “If he doesn’t, we won’t get out of this…”
“And we will?” the seventh inquires.
“If he tells us where we are… yes.”
“This is the point,” the sixth Doctor continues, “…where … where…” He seems almost at a loss for words. Then he looks up. There is an indescribable look on his face. One utterly at odds with the setting. “In my first incarnation, I defied the Time Lords. Decided I would have no more of their hypocrisy. They said they didn’t interfere… but they lied, over and over. I had seen it. It was… one of the many factors in my leaving.” He shrugs. “My brother had already shown the way; what reason was there for me not to leave?” He takes a deep breath. “At this point, the Time Lords are about to interfere in a nexus point in Earth’s history. They will fail. But they only failed because a person or persons unknown intervened. And I strongly suspect that it is we who have to stop them. Before the Matrix reveals the full consequences of what happens, and they are set on their course… We,” he gestures to the assorted Trolls, Lurkers, Fireflies, Doctors, Companions, Bookworms, and orange Egyptian gods, “are going to have to go up against the High Council of Gallifrey. Armed with nothing but our wits, and a firm belief in fun.”