Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ace shivered - it was very cold.
some of the other doctors that were not well-attired for these circumstances also looked cold.
Thr guards finished chaining them up, and then went to stand by the far wall - which wasn't that far. Professor looked sadly at his crushed hat.
David had grandpa in his lap, and was whispering softly to him in that odd language.
'What are they talking about?' She whispered to professor.
'I can't hear.'
'Professor, what language is that?'
'A very old one.' and he refused to say any more.
'Hey, shut up!' Growled Trayte, coming over and kicking Ace.
'Hey, Get lost!' Shouted Morgan before he could contain himself.
This time, it was Diva that recieved the punishment, a kick in the jaw.
'Ouch!'
'That's what they all say.'
Diva swore. or at least, that's what it sounded like to Ace. She couldn't tell - it was in some alien language.


((that's it, my parent are home ninja i'm supposed to be doing geography fieldwork. Oh, i'm so bored.))

((I don't know when to push in, soI may as well do it now. I'm Nyssa by the way. And we can't give up Geography OR History for another..what two years? In year 11? Ah well..it's only for another Term, KB. Besides, you do get to play the spoons on Mr Chad..umm..hmm..I don't know how to jump in. How unusual. I'll wait for Timelady's post.))

Ace waited, as she heard Morgan's agonized screams. The professor patted her comfortingly on the arm.
((hold on, i'm geeting a blanket before i die of hypothermia. I'm shivering so much I type every letter like three times.
Ok, back to the story...))
'We'll live.'
'Indeed. I-We, try not to die too often.' smiled David.
'Shut up.' mumbled Bignose.
'You shut up.'
'Why, motormouth?'
'Don't start, please....'
'Oh why not, you mopheaded...'
'Stoop!' Shouted professor. 'Please.'
'Yeah, listen to yourself.' Grunted the guard. and then he realised that his sentence could be interpreted in more than one way, which seemed to amuse him. He guffawed at his 'joke.'
'Such a primitive mind.' Mumbled James. There was another yelp from Morgan, which sent shivers down Ace's spine. She shivered again - this time from the cold.
'Primitive?' The guard's black eyes locked onto James'.
'Me? Oh, you...' He grabbed Bignose and threw him against the wall. Bignose clenched his fists and breathed in sharply. The guard punched him several times, and then dropped him.
'Ouch.'
'That's what they all say.'
'So we've heard.' They all turned to see Trayte standing in the doorway.
'We have a problem. our scanner shoe that There are two girls and a robotic dog still left in the time machine.'
The professor's head fell into his hands, and he grasped his hair as though he were about to pull it out. David gently restrained him from doing any such thing.
'so...' Trayte clapped his hands together 'Who'll be next? oooh, thi it fun.' He pointed at james.
'Eeny meeny miney mo.' His finger pointed from doctor to doctor, landing finally on Professor.
'No!' SHouted Ace.
'Ace...' warned Professor
'Get lost you idiots! what do you want anyway? Just-Leave-Us-ALONE!'
'Oooh, bad move, girlie.'

1st Doctor = Grandpa
2nd Doctor = James
3rd Doctor = Einstein
4th Doctor = David
5th Doctor = Donald
6th Doctor = Morgan
7th Doctor = Professor
8th Doctor = (As yet un-named... I dread to think what it will be...)
9th Doctor = Big Nose
10th Doctor = Diva

*Donald looked up as the girl was thrown into the cell. A smile broke out across his face as he cried "Nyssa!". The smile quickly faded.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.

She opened her mouth to speak when a guard came up behind her and kicked her towards the wall. She didn't argue as he chained her up by the wrists. When he turned and left, Ace leant towards her.
"My name's Ace. Welcome to the hell-hole."

She looked up to see Trayte glaring at them.
"You're lucky," said Trayte, his glare turning to a smile, "But you're friend upstairs won't be. Your little outburst will have serious consequences for him. Remember that."

Silent as a shadow, he disappeared up the stairs.
_________________________

On the next floor up the guards waited for Trayte to join them before herding their prisoner onwards. The Professor was finally getting a look at Trayte's laboratory - and the 'experiments' he himself was going to be a part of. It was both fascinating and terrifying.

"This is a very odd mix.." he said conversationally as he was dragged through one part of the lab - full of dusty equipment and old books - and into the next.
"Seems like someone's got their science mixed up with their fairytales..."

This earnt him a slap to the head from the guard behind but Trayte just smiled.
"As you say Doctor,"
He didn't elaborate and the Professor silently cursed. He'd been hoping Trayte was a gloater.

"I don't suppose I could ask..." The Professor fell silent. They had entered a larger, circular room. Arranged at intervals around the walls were man-sized glass tubes full of wires and lights. Pipes - possibly full of more wires - led from the top of each towards the center of the ceiling where they joined into the side of a huge, glass sphere. Below the sphere someone had built what looked like a replica of the TARDIS console only this one was darker and more powerful. It exuded vast amounts of energy, enough to make the Professor feel sick. He turned back to the glass tubes. One of them was for him, he knew it. Two were already full and he gasped as he saw them.



Einstein was leaning forwards onto the glass front, his nose bleeding and his eyes bleary and unfocused. Morgan appeared to be unconscious, slumped to one side. Neither looked anything like the Doctors who had left the dungeons.

Trayte hustled the Professor into the tube next to Morgan's. He opened the glass front and shoved him in backwards. The Professor felt several sharp protrusions in the tube wall digging into his spine. For a moment he thought of fighting back, but he knew it would do no good. He let Trayte attach devices to his wrist and round his neck. He couldn't see clearly what they were, but they attached straight into his skin with a sharp crackle of electricity.

"Now then," said Trayte, stepping back, "I wouldn't want to disappoint our audience downstairs..."
He lunged forwards with the electrical device he had used on Donald earlier and plunged it into the Professor's stomach. The Professor heard himself scream as a horrible jolt went through his insides making his nerves burn like they were on fire. When Trayte removed the device, he was still smiling.
"You thought the screams you heard were fakes?"

He closed the glass front, fixing the magnetic locks shut. Immediately the Professor felt trapped and hot, though he was relieved to see two small air vents at the very top of the tube, just big enough to let in the oxygen he so desperately craved. He was gasping from the attack and his stomach ached in a far more unpleasant way than it ever had before. He leant against the glass and saw Einstein across the room, giving him a sympathetic stare. He turned to Trayte.

The vindictive little man seemed to have forgotten all about his specimens. His attention was absorbed into a large, leather-bound book. It looked old - probably ancient, possibly Gallifreyan. The Professor didn't recognise it. After reading for several pages Trayte turned to the controls on the main console and flicked a switch. The circuit of lights and pipes and meters came to life. Energy crackled down the wires and the Professor felt some sort of strange power filling up the tube he was in and then he blacked out.*

He lifted the second device as if to use it and then stopped. His face had gone suddenly pale and his eyes rolled upwards, staring at the stone ceiling.
"Again..." he whispered, apparently to himself.
He lowered the fire device and clutched both of them to him, almost defensively. As he did so a cold wind struck up, howling down the corridor and round the laboratory, sending pieces of paper dancing into the air and ruffling the pages of the book Trayte had been reading. For a moment the lights dimmed and then, just as suddenly as it had began, it stopped.

Ace looked at Trayte. His eyes were bulging and there was sweat on his brow. She scanned the walls, the floor. There was nothing there. She almost asked him if he was ok, but the pain in her side stopped her.

"This place..." he hissed, his voice turning angry, He swung back to the replica console.
"We can't waste anymore time!" he snapped at the nearest guard, "Put the fourth Doctor in his place and tie this girl up in the corner. Then bring the others up, all of them, and put the oldest one in the healing chamber. He must last through the entire process. Go! Now!"

The guard shoved David into one of the glass tubes, inserting the wrist and neck devices in clumsily. He walked back to Ace, dragged her over to an empty corner, kicking a pile of old books out the way as he did so, and chained her by the wrists to a metal ring in the wall. Then he and the other guard hurried off to the dungeons.

"Getting worried?" muttered Ace, glaring at Trayte.

"Not of you..." he snapped. He didn't say anymore.

((I just read a particularly dark and miserable Doctor Who book. I'm sorry if this gets a little grim...))

* A guard entered the room. Trayte beckoned him over.
"Have you caught the others yet? The girls and the robot?"

"No sir..." replied the guard, looking sheepish, "They evaded capture at the bridge. They must have taken a circular route... but don't worry sir, we'll catch them."

"You'd better. I want them found. I want them locked away where they can't interfere."

The guard opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the entrance of the other Doctors. 2nd, 5th, 8th, 9th and 10th were all led to their corresponding tubes. Number 1 - Grandpa - was carried, unconscious, into a nearby doorway. Ace leant over to look inside. It seemed to be just a small, black, empty room. But when the guard walked in with the prone Doctor, the air began to glow. He laid the old Timelord on the floor and walked out, closing the door behind him.

"Done sir."

"Good..." Trayte was absorbing instructions from his book again, "It will take a little time for him to repair..."
He took in a breath of air, hissing like a snake.
"We're so close! I can feel the break in the barrier... Soon we will make contact."

"Yes sir..."
The guard seemed nervous stood in the laboratory. He kept glancing at the huge glass globe near the ceiling. It's surface had begun to shimmer - a slightly oily look spreading across the glass. Or it might have only been Ace's imagination. She watched as the guard and his fellows scuttled out. They didn't want to be there when whatever happened, well, happened.

Ace looked around. Where was Nyssa? She panicked for a moment, worried they'd done something terrible to her, when she spotted her in a corner, chained just like she was. The woman gave her a puzzled half-smile.

Trayte was flicking switches again. The air was getting hotter and harder to breath. As the light from the wires and dials increased the light that had been streaming in through the windows from outside seemed to darken. Trayte's face was lit up in garish shades of electric yellow and red from the console beneath him. He was grinning.
"The second specimen first..."
He flicked a switch. James suddenly let out a yell from his glass prison and his hands flew to his head. Trayte flicked another switch.
"Now number 3... number 4..."
He went through the Doctors in turn, making each squirm like the next. Ace couldn't tell what he was doing to them. Was it physical? It looked more like some sort of thought control... Or perhaps he was taking something from them... but what? Energy flowed through the wires from the tubes and into the glass sphere. It was beginning to darken now.
"Number 10..." he flicked the final switch and Diva gave a yell, thumping his head off the glass front as if trying to break his way out. Trayte didn't seem to notice.

"It's not enough!" he snapped, adjusting a dial, "I need number 1! I need the first!"
The glass globe had stopped filling up with shadows. It stayed as it was, misty and grey. Trayte glanced up at it.
"Is he ready?"

A guard from outside hurried in. He too glanced at the globe - his face went pale - and then he strode to the little room. He opened the door. Grandpa was still lying just as he'd been left, though the wound to his head had vanished.
"He's still unconscious..." said the guard.

"It doesn't matter," said Trayte, not even looking up from his controls, "Just so long as he's breathing."

"Yes sir..." he lifted Grandpa in his arms, "I sent the others out hunting for those women..."

"Good good. Put him in the first chamber! Hurry!"

The guard carried Grandpa to the remaining empty glass tube. He opened the front and propped the unconscious Timelord up against the back. Nervously, he began to attach one of the electrical devices to Grandpa's wrist...

Several things happened all at once. Firstly, Ace caught the Professor looking at her. She could see it was a strain for him to keep conscious, but he was fighting the energy in the tube to do so. When he'd caught her eye he glanced sideways, indicating Morgan. She looked. Morgan appeared to have fallen unconscious again but when she stared for a moment she spotted his eyes flickering open. He glanced at her and then Trayte before shutting them again. This all seemed to happen in slow motion for Ace for no sooner had she seen this than there was a flash of light from all 10 glass chambers and a yell from the guard. When the device had connected with Grandpa's skin a huge rush of energy had flowed through the room - as if the final connection in a circuit had been wired up. As soon as the device touched him Grandpa's eyes shot open and he whipped out his walking stick, the one that had been so uncomfortably jammed up the back of his shirt since he'd been knocked out. He struck the guard a blow across the face which, by pure luck and chance knocked the guy's head back and he landed on the floor, unconscious.

"Foolish old man!" Trayte snarled as he watched his guard hit the floor, "You can't hope to escape here on your own!"

Grandpa was ripping the wrist attachment off with a look of vague disgust. Trayte had the electrical weapon he'd used on Ace earlier and he was raising it for an attack. Ace gave a shout and tugged desperately at her chains. As Trayte stormed round the room towards Grandpa there was a muffled yell and the sound of glass smashing. At the perfect moment, Morgan had raised his head and plunged his fists through the glass front of his encasement. In a cloud of blood and glass and broken electricals he flew forwards, pinning down Trayte's arms.
"Get the others!" he roared at Grandpa who nodded and quickly began releasing the front catches of the glass tubes. Exhausted, drained looking Doctors staggered and fell out of the tubes, shouting and crying with relief. The Professor hurried straight over to Ace.

"Are you okay there my dear Ace?" he said, a smile breaking out across his face as he undid her chains. She nearly hugged him - but decided this wasn't the time. Big Nose had gone to the fake TARDIS console and was turning off the switches Trayte had spent so long switching on.

"Noo!" screamed Trayte, his voice rising, spit flying out with his words, "You can't do this! I'm so close! THEIR POWER WILL BE MINE! I WILL SET IT FREE!"
He looked up to the globe. Ace found herself looking up with him and she gasped. In the murky black and grey surface she was sure she saw a face staring back at her. A mangled, half-human half-monster face. And then it was gone again and there was nothing but smoke. She must have only imagined it.
"NO!" Trayte continued to scream, "I'M SO CLOSE!"

"If you don't mind..." said Morgan, looking at Big Nose. His 9th incarnation nodded.

"With pleasure..." he strode over and punched Trayte straight across the cheek. Trayte went limp in Morgan's arms and the Timelord finally let him go. Like his guard, he dropped to the floor with a sickening 'thump'.

"Let's go..." said Morgan, heading for the door, "We don't have much time to spare if we're to find Mel and the others before the guards..."

"Turns out we didn't need K-9 afterall!" said Diva, grinning as he released Nyssa from her chains.

Morgan growled.
"I'd still like them not to get caught!"
He and the others were heading for the door when he noticed the Professor wasn't following and turned.
"Coming?"

"I'll just be a mo..." The Professor replied, making adjustments to the console, pulling out wires and plugs, "I just want to make sure that this can't be used again... I won't be long..."

"Yes," said James, pulling the last tricky remains of the attachment to his neck out of his skin, "I'll help! I certainly don't want to go through all that again... in any incarnation..."

"Right..." said Morgan, sounding nervous, "Just... don't hang around, alright?"
With that he followed Nyssa and the other Doctors outside. Ace hung back also. She wasn't leaving without the Professor. James gave them both a grin.

"Unpleasant business, but there's something oh-so-satisfying about escaping from the clutches of a mad scientist!"

"Quite!" said the Professor, grinning despite the feeling of nausea that was still making the room spin. He grabbed a bundle of wires and wrenched them out of the controls. There was an unhappy groan from the console. James began ripping out the attachments from the glass tubes and stomping on them.

When the two Doctors had finally decided that they'd had enough they turned for the door.
"You first!" James said, holding out a hand.

"No you first, I insist..."

Ace opened her mouth to argue when there was a movement from behind them. She spun round to see Trayte rising up, a gun in his hand.

"Neither of you are going anywhere or I will shoot you dead! You too, girl!"

James glanced at the Professor, eyes wide.
"Run!"

All three ran for the door. Ace could hear Trayte moving behind them. There was a long corridor ahead, no cover. Time seemed to slow. They were halfway along, there was sunlight, an open door ahead. James was just ahead of her, the Professor was at her side. There was the sound of a gun firing and then suddenly James' chest became a cloud of blood. He tumbled forwards. Almost without thinking Ace and the Professor skidded to a halt. James had hit the ground face first. Even from where she was Ace could see the two shots, clean through each heart. James' chest rose once and fell and then stopped.

"No!" she shouted, hardly able to think.

"What have you done?" The Professor screamed, as time snapped back into place, cold and hard, "You've killed us all!"

Trayte laughed. That disgusting, heartless laugh.
"Haven't you realised it by now Doctor? You are not in real time. You are in a Time Bubble. None of what happens here affects the Timeline - none of it! I plucked each of your incarnations from points in time where you yourself had caused a paradox. You are just offshoots of yourself! If you die, no-one will ever know!"

"I'll know!" The Professor said, collapsing to his knees, "You killed him!"

Looking almost amused, his gun pointing straight at Ace's head, Trayte walked forwards and lazily rolled James' body over with his foot. He stared at him for a moment. James' eyes were closed, there was no sign of life. He remained cold and unchanging. Trayte laughed.
"I half-expected him to regenerate... what a shame..."

Ace could hardly breath. She'd just seen a Doctor - her Doctor once - killed. In front of her eyes. When it could have been her.

"Ah yes..." Trayte continued, noticing Ace, "I promised to tear off a limb for you did I not?"
He grabbed one of James' arms, as if he would keep his promise. Then he dropped it again.
"I think I made my point clear enough, get back into the lab."

Hands on their heads, no sign of fight left in them, Ace and the Professor did as they were instructed.
"Trayte..." The Professor said, his throat choked with tears, "What are you going to do now that you no longer have all of my incarnations?"

"I only needed you all to begin the process. Now that it has begun you should be more than enough to complete it..."

A trio of guards appeared in the doorway, blocking out the sunlight.
"Sir! The others..."
They glanced at the body lying on the floor. Trayte beckoned them past it.

"Forget them! Make sure these two do not escape!"

"And... him?" said one guard, indicating the body.

"Leave him. I'll deal with the cleaning up later..."
He marched them all into the lab and slammed the door shut.
_____________________

As soon as the door had closed shadows began to creep across the hallway floor. Fluid as water, with no living creature to cause them, they looked like strange fish, swimming beneath the flagstones. They gathered around James' body, getting stronger, darker. They flowed into his fingers, his ears, his feet... A cold wind began to blow as the shadows engulfed the little Timelord's body and then, as it stopped, the shadows fell back. James sat up. His eyes were as black as marble, his face held none of the life it had. In his chest were two black holes, filled up with shadows.

He got to his feet, staring at the lab door. After a moment's thought James - or rather the creature now in his body - turned away from it and disappeared into the bowels of the castle.

It was waiting. Plotting.

And at last it had a form...

The creature threw the Professor to one side, barely glancing at him. It advanced on Trayte.

"You found a way through!" snarled Trayte, "I should have been more careful and burnt that damned corpse!"
The creature moved towards him slowly, carefully, as if unsure of exactly how to walk. Trayte seized the moment. He dived behind the console and brought out a large glass bottle full of what appeared to be blood.
"Come no further!" he shrieked, uncorking the bottle, "You won't stop me freeing the other! You won't stop me getting the power I deserve!"
He swept the bottle round. The liquid spilled out in an arc, marking a half-circle around Trayte, Ace, the Professor and the console. As the liquid landed it hissed and the creature stopped in it's tracks. It was silent, but Ace could feel the anger. The guards who had followed them in had retreated to the back of the room, cowering.

It took a step back, drawing in breath as if it had never had to before.
"I will destroy the other,"
The creature's voice was strange - like two voices overlaid. Beneath was James' voice, dulled but recognisable. Across it was a more feminine voice, sharp and with a hiss to it's tone. It made Ace shiver to hear it.

Glancing at the ring of blood, the creature took another step back and was suddenly engulfed in shadows. They chattered like angry birds and then burst apart, scattering across the walls and then fading to nothing. Trayte let out a sigh of relief.

"What was that?" whispered the Professor, standing up, "What happened to him?"

Trayte looked at him. When he answered, his tone was subdued.
"That was a creature from beyond the Time Vortex. It is like the thing I am trying to summon, only it wishes to stop me. It has plagued me for months now! But I have the upper hand. It may have a body, but I have the power to complete my experiment!"

He grabbed the Professor roughly by the front of his jacket and shoved him into the nearest glass tube. He picked up the remains of an attachment. Pulling out the wires and stripping them of their covers, he wrapped them round the Professor's wrist.
"This will have to do. Prepare yourself Doctor! You are about to witness the joining of two dimensions! It should be quite spectacular!"

The Professor muttered something but it was cut off by the slamming of the glass front and the snap of the lock.
________________

Outside Morgan stood on the edge of an outcrop of trees staring worriedly back at the castle. At his feet were the bodies of two unconscious guards - the only ones to find them so far. In the other direction he could hear the voices of Mel and Sarah-Jane as they at last met up with Diva and Donald, but he wasn't worried about them. He was worried about the Professor, James and Ace, who hadn't returned.

"Something's wrong..." said a voice behind him. He turned to see Grandpa. He was looking pale and worn.
"I can feel that something's gone badly wrong..."

"I don't want to go back in there," replied Morgan, "Not to get us all captured again..." he clenched his fists in frustration, "God I should have dragged that rogue Trayte out here with us! In fact, I should have..."
He stopped. There was no point in thinking just like his enemy.

"I'm going to try and contact James," said Grandpa, taking a seat on the grass, "He's the closest to my incarnation. He'll be able to tell me what's happening... will you keep an eye on me? I maybe some time..."

"Of course," replied Morgan, kneeling beside him. The old man lay down, his hands placed neatly on his chest. He began to concentrate.

It didn't take long - it didn't take long at all and that was when Morgan knew there was something wrong. Grandpa's chest jerked upwards and he clawed at his shirt as if in pain. For a moment his eyelids shot back and Morgan was terrified to see that beneath was all black.
"Shot!" moaned Grandpa, writhing frantically, "Shot! SHOT!"

He leapt up into a sitting position shouting. Then he blinked and the darkness fell away. He was back. Morgan put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"What happened?"

"I... I don't know..." said Grandpa, gasping for air, "I couldn't find him.. Or I... I don't think I found him... Someone's been shot... But.. But..."
He didn't seem able to form any real thoughts out of what he had seen. He tried to calm down.
"I picked up on something else's thoughts.... Only it shoved me back... An incredible mind..." he turned to Morgan, face serious, "We have to get them out of there! We have to use K-9, like we were going to!"

"There's a troupe of guards round the TARDIS..." Morgan replied, frowning in concentration, "We'd have to deal with them too... So that we can all escape..."

"There's enough of us free," said Grandpa, creakily getting to his feet, "We can do both. Whatever we do, I want to go back into the castle with you."

"You? Why? It's the biggest risk sending you in! Not to mention..."

"Not to mention I'm old and frail and useless?" Grandpa snapped, "I'm younger than you, I'll remind you, and I am perfectly capable of keeping myself alive. It's one of my best traits. Now come on! Think up this plan."

((It's a quotes from a Scottish comedy show called Chewin' The Fat. The direct translation is "Don't do that." Then the other guy goes "How?" (meaning "Why?") And then the first guy goes "Just don't.". Ok so explaining it sounds pretty dumb but it's kinda funny cos the other guy's always doing something that's incredibly stupid. confused Yes Scotland has warped my brain. But if you'd seen the Gaelic sock puppets sketch you would be converted... *sigh* Their website's good anyway. They're the Scottish equivalent of Little Britain. Ok so you hate that but errr... it's funny anyway, honest.

Um I'm not gonna be here for a week, in fact I shouldn't be typing this cos we're packing to go to England as I type. So I won't write anything right now but have fun and I want to know what K-9's gonna do! Bye!

P.S. The picture rocks.))