Written for Jessa L'Rynn's August I challenge, to rewrite an episode where something is different, missing or added. I chose, as crazy as it is, to rewrite the Key to Time season with Donna as the companion instead of Romana I. This first part is, of course, the first part. The Ribos Operation. Dumping these two together and watching what happens. This is my first time at trying to write Four.
One chapter is one episode, so the first 5 stories in this series will have 4 chapters, while the last will have 6. Will be coming out when I write the chapters, which will be pretty slow since in between I am writing Help! and my Jackie prompts.
This chapter, the Doctor and Donna are put together unexpectedly and against both their wishes on a quest to find the legendary Key to Time. The dialogue before Donna enters is pretty much what was in the episode. It goes AU from there. Any errors in characterisation and/or wording from the scripts are mine.
Hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing it. Because it has been fun.
The Ribos Operation Rewritten
"Master." K-9 said in reply to his blowing the dog whistle he had made for the robot dog.
"It works K-9, it works. Listen," he leant closer to his dog, as if to whisper his idea in his ear. "I've got a little surprise for you."
"Master?" K-9 replied, with his normal speech pattern. Of course, being a robot didn't leave much in the way for emotion, but really, K-9 could have tried to have sounded excited.
"You and I are going away on a holiday."
"Affirmative."
"A nice, long holiday."
"Affirmative."
"Would you like that K-9?"
"Affirmative, affirmative, affirmative,"
He hushed K-9 down. There's nothing more annoying to his ears then K-9 repeating over and over affirmative. "Halergan 3 is lovely K-9. Not that you'll like it. Beaches, palm trees, sunshine all day." He was about to go on about it more, when the lights in the TARDIS died and the doors, without his permission opened, letting in a bright light.
"Doctor," came a voice from outside. He shielded his eyes from the light and tried to figure out whether he knew this mysterious being or not.
"Yes?" he asked, still not clearly able to see anything.
"Your presence is required."
Oh, that was informative.
"Look, I, I don't wish to appear rude but...who are you?"
"Do you really need to ask, Doctor?"
"Well, only a Guardian..." And suddenly this whole bright lights flashing, and the doors opening by themselves thing made sense. "Ah...I see." He looked down. What had he done wrong to get into trouble by the Guardians? "In that case, uh..."
"You will come to no harm."
Oh, well, that was comforting.
"Just as you say."
He hesitated for a few seconds, before moving outside. The planet he was on was rocky, and there was nothing in sight other than a chair, an umbrella for shade, said rocky landscape, and a few trees scattered about. The sky was a peachy colour that was on the verge of being some shade of orange.
Sunset by the looks of it. All he knew was that it wasn't as bright out here.
Show off.
That last thought was made even clearer by the sudden appearance of a man dressed all in white, sitting on the chair, and sipping from a drink, which was put down on a table that hadn't been there two seconds before.
"Doctor, you have been chosen for a vitally important task."
"That's very flattering sir," he said in reply, not knowing what to think of this.
"It concerns the Key to Time. You know of the Key to Time?"
"Well, I've heard a few stories, myths, legends, that sort of thing."
"It is no myth."
Well, obviously not, since he was going on this vitally important quest which apparently centres entirely on it. "Sorry sir."
"The Key to Time is a perfect cube, which contains the equilibrium of time itself. It consists of six segments, and these segments are scattered and hidden throughout the cosmos. When they are assembled into the cube, they contain a power which is too dangerous for any creature to possess."
He nodded. "Well hidden then I hope sir," he replied, wondering why it was he was being told all this. He was beginning to suspect that this was some kind of a joke.
"There are times Doctor, when the forces within the universe upset the balance to such an extent that it becomes necessary to stop everything."
"Stop everything?" he interrupted. Why would that be important? Isn't the entire point of the universe that whatever happens happens, balance be damned? Time Lord's didn't interfere that much. All except him of course. He liked seeing new places. Time Lords mainly interfered when it put the entire universe in jeopardy.
"For a brief moment only."
"Ah." Yes, it all made perfect sense...
"Until the balance is restored." The Guardian finished, as if he hadn't been interrupted at all, putting his drink down which he had been sipping at through the brief pause. "Such a moment is rapidly approaching. The segments must be found and returned to me before it is too late. Before the universe is plunged into eternal chaos."
Ah, now it really did make sense. But why him?
"Eternal chaos?"
"Eternal as you understand the term."
Oh, it just keeps getting better doesn't it?
"Look, I'm sure there are plenty other Time Lords who would like..."
"I have chosen you."
He looked away. "Yes, I was afraid you'd say something like that." He looked back and couldn't help it. "Ah! You want me to volunteer, is that it?"
"Precisely," he was told, a small grin on the Guardian's face.
"And if I don't?"
A blink, before the reply. "Nothing."
"Nothing?" Why did he not believe that in the slightest? "You mean nothing will happen to me?"
"Nothing at all," the Guardian replied, going back to his drink. Those eyes turned back to him, smiling, and the sentence was finished. "Ever."
"Ah..." He turned away, looked to the ground. He knew it wasn't a choice he had. He was being used as a pawn. He'd have to brush up on his chess skills then. He turned back. "What do these segments look like? How will I know them?"
"They're all disguised."
"Oh, yes, I thought they might be." There was no way that they would make this easy for him.
"They contain the elemental force of the universe. They can be in any shape, form, or size."
Ah, yes, he was expecting that too.
"Then how will I recognise them?"
"You will be given a locator."
'Thank you!" Yes, well that makes it all a bit better. At least he wouldn't be going around blind then.
"And an assistant."
"An assistant? Ah, please sir, on an assignment like this, I'd rather much work alone. In my experience, assistants mean trouble. I have to protect them and show them and teach them and couldn't I just...couldn't I just manage with K-9?"
The Guardian shook his head, no. "K-9 is just a machine."
"He's a very sensitive machine." Now he was mad. He lowered his voice. "I'm sorry sir." He wasn't even sure if the Guardian heard that last or not.
"You will find your assistant waiting for you in the TARDIS."
If that wasn't a dismissal he didn't know what else could be classed as one. He went to say something, but decided not to, dropping the arm he had raised in the attempt to change the Guardian's mind. It wouldn't work.
"Very well, sir, if you insist."
"One final thing, Doctor."
"Yes?" He wasn't too pleased, and it was coming off of him quite clearly in both actions and tone of voice. Why couldn't he just go, get this quest over and done with and then go on his planned holiday with K-9.
"I am the White Guardian. In an attempt to keep the universal balance there is also a Black Guardian and he also requires the Key to Time, but for a different purpose. An evil purpose. He must not get it. Doctor, at all costs, you must prevent that."
And just when he thinks it couldn't get any worse, he ends up trapped in a feud between good and evil with two of the most powerful beings in the universe. "How am I to prevent that?" He was only one mortal being after all.
"Beware the Black Guardian."
"Beware the Black Guardian..." This White Guardian was good at giving very helpful advice...
"Beware," repeated the Guardian, picking up the drink again, and beginning to fade away. "Beware."
He stood there for a moment, waiting to see if any more men would pop into existence in front of him, but none did, so he turned around and went back inside the TARDIS. The only one in the console room was K-9. He lowered himself down to talk to the dog. "I'm sorry, K-9, but the holiday's off."
"Where the hell am I? Where is this? What the hell is that thing? And who are you?!" came a voice, a woman's voice. A very loud, grating on his nerves voice. He turned in the direction it came from and found a woman standing beside the door that led to the corridors beyond the console room.
"That's the new assistant," he whispered to K-9, before looking back at who the White Guardian thought would be an appropriate person to give him for this quest. The woman moved to stand near the console, as if hiding from him. She was dressed in simple clothes, a purple top and ankle length skirt. She looked just as angry as he felt.
"Well, answer me!" she demanded him.
He noticed she was holding a stick like instrument, which he guessed must be his locator.
"Who gave you that?" he asked back, eyeing it warily. No need to find out if she'd become violent, as she had that look about her.
She looked down at her hands, put it hurriedly down on the console and walked over to the corridor door, but didn't step through it. "Dunno. Some old man in a white suit. Now answer my questions!"
"You're in my TARDIS. This thing is my dog, K-9, and I am the Doctor, if you must know. And who are you, demanding me answer your questions?"
She crossed her arms across her rather ample chest and glared. "Doctor isn't a name, it's a title. And I'm Donna. Donna Noble."
Donna Noble. Well, if he didn't know species by now there'd be something wrong with him. "That's human. You're human. Why, out of all the species in the universe did he give me a human? I was expecting another Time Lord."
"What?" she asked again, her arms still crossed tightly under her chest.
"Oh never mind. Give me the stick and we'll see what we can make of it."
Donna rolled her eyes. She grabbed the stick, held it out to him and he snatched it off her quickly before she changed her mind.
"That guy in white. He said something about it being a core to some kind of key. Helps find pieces he said, tracks them down and makes them look like what they are really meant to be. Whatever the hell that's meant to mean."
"Yes, the Key to Time. You're stuck with me until it's found I'm afraid. Or else you'll just be teleported right back here again, at a guess."
She turned and moved back to the console, looking around it, as if trying to figure out how to operate it. "Lucky me, then. Why's there a hole in this thing?"
He jumped to his feet and rushed to what she was talking about. There isn't supposed to be holes on his TARDIS's console panel. Yet there it was. A hole. "Who put that there?! Don't worry old girl, we'll get you fixed in no time."
He was probably giving off the wrong impression by kissing the console's newest addition, but if it made the TARDIS feel any better...
"What the hell is a TARDIS anyway?" the woman, no, Donna she said her name was, asked.
"It stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. Beyond a simple human's understanding. What time period are you from anyway? And what planet for that matter."
"What do you mean what planet? Earth, you idiot man! And I was at home when I was kidnapped and dumped here. In Chiswick if you must know."
He rolled his eyes and looked at her, standing there on the opposite end of the console as him. "Yes, yes, but what time? What year?"
"Oh, 2006."
His head smacked heavily into the console, making sure not to switch anything that wasn't supposed to be, and roughly over the new hole that had formed from nowhere. Still rather primitive then, but not in a way that would mean she would be completely lost about the existence of aliens. Not in that time and age, though most people still didn't believe. It could have been worse. Much worse.
"So! What's this Key to Time then? And why can't I just go home?"
He sighed. Explanations. Yes, they'll be a lot of that. He hoped this Donna woman got used to travelling through time and space quickly. Lucky for him, humans adapted pretty fast. "It's a cube, made up of six pieces that when put together controls time and space. The pieces can look like anything, so this thing," he held up the stick, and on a whim stuck it in the hole to try and make it look like part of the console, "is the locator that will allow us to find the pieces, put them together and get us out of each other's hair. You can't go home because you'd probably be dumped back in here if you even tried."
He looked down at the locator, and doubled back when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that a location had been put into the TARDIS. Well, a general location anyway. A planet. And it was more a suggestion than actually having been put into the TARDIS's controls to go there.
So, the hole was for the locator, and the locator would tell him which planets the key pieces were on. Good! It at least meant that a lot of time travelling literally everywhere wouldn't be wasted.
For that matter, one or all the pieces could actually be a planet...
"Ribos. Donna, I'd go put on something warm if I were you, where we're going might be cold. Yet again, we might get there during the sunny period. Then you can take off layers."
He said it as an afterthought as he put in the location that had been located and glanced up. He almost let himself hit his head into the console again, but stopped himself this time. "There's a wardrobe. With any luck it'll be close to the door. Go."
She glared at him in as evil a way as she could manage before going into the corridors beyond the door she had been loitering in front of. She was back a few minutes later, a huge brown, furry coat on that for the planet that they were going to was actually rather appropriate. Good, at least this one had sense when it came to dressing herself. That couldn't be said for all his assistants. He pulled out the locator and handed it to Donna. Let her do something. It might keep her occupied for a bit, with any luck.
He was soon piloting his ship towards their first destination, and as soon as the door was opened, decided it was a good thing he never went anywhere without his scarf, because it was during the cold period. The TARDIS was either playing around, or he just picked the wrong time. He had been hoping for a bit of sun.
Donna soon followed him out, and immediately noticed what everyone else did. She ran. A short squawk of fright later and he went after her, to find her swinging very uncomfortably in a net.
He laughed. "Donna, do you do this often? I didn't know you liked to hang about old buildings like this."
She glared at him. "Get me down!"
When she was down and back on her feet, she pointed in the direction of the TARDIS, which was still standing just a few metres away and in full view of them both. "What the hell is that?!"
"The TARDIS. She's dimensionally transcendental."
She looked at him like he was speaking a language other than English. He wasn't actually, he had learned the language long ago. "What the hell does that mean?!"
"It's bigger on the inside. I'd give you a better explanation than that, but you'd never understand it."
The human woman huffed and begun walking away, before walking back. "How the hell are we supposed to know where to go?"
He glared at her. This one seemed a bit thick. "You've got the locator, find out how it works."
Rolling her eyes and muttering something under her breath, Donna held it out in front of her and watched as it made sounds that changed speed and pitch slightly depending on the direction. "It's like one of those things for knowing about radiation."
"Yes, it does sound a bit like that. Good! Where's it coming from strongest, and that's the direction we want to go."
Alright, maybe not so stupid. At least she was trying something, and figuring it out. They set out in the same direction that she had been heading in anyway. Before too long, they were roaming about the castles inside corridors, Donna waving the locator about in front of her at every turn just to make sure they stayed going in the right direction.
Until they heard the man walking past, yelling about the time. That caused Donna to once again glare at him. "I don't know where Ribos or whatever this place is called is, but I've been to Somerset before, and that was definitely a Somerset accent."
The Doctor had been staring in surprise at the man who had disappeared around a corner and nodded. "Yes, yes it was. That doesn't make any sense. This is a type 3 planet, and that means not a lot of contact with outside worlds. Especially not from Earth. Hmm, doesn't involve us anyway. Let's move on shall we?"
Donna followed behind him, waving about the stick in her hand as it beeped them towards their destination. Soon enough, they found a door which was barred and definitely locked. Thankfully, he had his sonic screwdriver. The bar was easily shifted, it wasn't that heavy.
"What do you mean outside worlds, especially Earth?"
He handed the bar over to Donna, who put it down by the side of the door, and she glared daggers at him.
"It's where we are. The planet Ribos in the Scytha Constellation. Far from where you are from."
He ignored her disregard for his truth telling, and got out the sonic screwdriver. "And this," he said as he pointed it at the door, and grinned when he heard the lock turn, opening the door and ushering Donna quickly inside. "Is a sonic screwdriver. Many uses, and quite good with a lock or two."
She looked kind of impressed by that, but tried to stop herself from showing it properly. "Well, at least you come in handy in a pinch, spaceman."
Well, some humans could never see genius when it reared up and bit them.
He had other important things to do, like cracking the locks on the cabinet in the middle of the room they were in, which was where the signal was coming from. He could hear Donna moving about, saying something about posh jewellery and probably wishing she could get her hands on a few items of which they weren't after.
A horn blew and a grinding noise started filling the room.
"Doctor! What is that thing? And help! I'm going to get squashed."
Poking his head up from under the cabinet, he saw that a door on one side of the room was lowering, and Donna was halfway through it, trying to lift it back up with her own strength. Running over to her, he crawled half in himself to try and push the door up to give them both a bit of time to get out, only to end up face to face with the ravening fangs of some kind of monster pet.
Oh, this was just not his day.