The TARDIS completed a relatively smooth landing. As the box came to a stop, the Doctor finished pulling the last of the levers and turned to Martha.
"And where- or when?- are we this time?" she asked him.
"We should be on Earth, America to be exact. I'm hoping for 21st century, about your time, Ms. Jones. Supposed to be the last time to see the great San Franciscan mountains. Should be beautiful!" the Doctor pulled the doors to the TARDIS and promptly fell backwards as the ground began to tremble.
"Doctor? What's going on?" Martha asked, grabbing onto the center console as the police box shook.
The Doctor grabbed his sonic screwdriver and scanned the ground outside as everything stopped shaking. "That's weird," he ran inside and starting hitting buttons on the computer, while hitting the button on his sonic.
"Doctor, what is it?" Martha wondered.
The Doctor hmm-ed and ran back outside, scanning the ground with his screwdriver and sticking his finger up, testing the air, before he looked back to Martha.
"There shouldn't have been an earthquake here," he began, "it was a 4.5, there isn't due to be one of this magnitude here for another five years, something's not right, the mountains, something to do with the mountains," the Doctor trailed off, ending his rambling.
"So it wasn't natural," Martha concluded.
"Exactamundo! No, nevermind, I told myself I'd never say that again, doesn't taste right. Anyway! Right, the earthquake, it wasn't natural, it came from the mountains."
"So we're gonna go check it our, right?" Martha asked, excited to go and explore once more.
"Allons-y!" the Time Lord exclaimed, running back to the center of the TARDIS, setting it to land in the mountains a few miles away from where they were.
Artemis was running through the forest, about to knock an arrow when she heard a strange noise. It was unlike any sound she had ever heard before, a strange mechanical vwrop-ing, extra loud in the quiet of the forest.
The animals startled, ruining her chance to shoot her prey. She walked towards the source of the sound, watching a strange blue box appear as the sound stopped.
She moved closer to the box, reading the sign on top, proclaiming it to be a police box. She slowly inched towards it as the doors swung inwards and a man walked out in a brown trench coat and very stand-upish hair.
"We have to trace it back to the source, come on, Martha!" the man was saying, calling behind him to a woman, who followed him out of the very strange, materializing box, that was somehow big enough to fit to adults inside.
"Oi!" the man called out, having spotted the goddess standing by the trees, staring at him. While she may be the goddess of the hunt, and therefore be very stealthy, she was too stunned to properly hide, as this was a scene that she had never before seen. "Who are you?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
After a quick internal debate over whether or not to tell this man who she really is, she decided to be truthful with this strange man. "My name is Artemis and this is my forest. I should be asking who you are!"
"I'm the Doctor and this is Martha. But you're the more interesting one here. Artemis, young woman, bow and arrow, 'your' forest. There's only one creature I can think of like that, so I must ask, why are you impersonating a Greek goddess?" he said, so fast she almost couldn't keep up.
"I'm not sure I follow you," she began, confused, "impersonating myself?"
"Of course!" he exclaimed, as if it were obvious, "only you're not actually Artemis. You're an alien. But I want to know why you chose a goddess. Of all the things … a goddess … so obviously false. What an awful disguise!" he sounded disgusted at the thought of it. "Now, just to think. Humanoid, huntress, young, earthquake? Was that you?"
"I don't understand, you believe in aliens but you don't believe in the gods and goddesses. And no!" she yelled, offended that he could think such things of her, "How dare you accuse me of causing that earthquake, it scarred away all the animals in MY forest, and they were just starting to come out when YOU showed up with your stupid box and its stupid noises!" she stormed towards him and jabbed him in the chest with her finger.
"Oi! My box is not stupid, and neither are her sounds!" the Doctor exclaimed in outrage.
"And aliens do not exist!" Artemis finished, as if the Doctor had never spoken.
"Well, no, you're wrong. Aliens do exist, you see, I am one. Look, two hearts!" he grinned goofily, using both hands to gesture to his chest, and his supposed two hearts.
Artemis put her hand against the left side of the Doctor's chest, feeling his heartbeat, and then moved her hand to the right, letting out a surprised noise when she felt another heart.
"I don't understand, of all the beasts I've encountered, none of them have ever had two hearts. What are you?" she asked, bewildered.
"I told you, I'm an alien!" he replied, a dopey grin on his face about having proved her wrong. "A Time Lord, the last of my time," he told her, the smile fading off his face towards the end. "But now, what I don't understand is you. Unless you're an amazing actress, you clearly didn't believe in aliens, and there's something distinctly not human about you."
"Doctor," the girl, Martha, spoke for the first time, "maybe she's telling the truth. Maybe there are actually gods and goddesses. I didn't believe it either, but something about her makes me think she's telling the truth," Martha tried to tell the Doctor. Finally, someone believed her.
"Thank you for believing me, I am Artemis, daughter of Zeus, goddess of the hunt," she told them.
Suddenly, there was a loud scream, coming from some place in the mountains, not too far off.
"What was that?" Martha asked, and they looked at each other and started running towards the sound.
"There aren't normally people in here, this isn't a normal forest, it was weird enough when you two showed up, and now there's a screaming human? Something isn't right here," Artemis told them as they ran through the forest.
"I could've told you that!" the Doctor yelled. "Come on, we need to find whoever screamed, it's probably linked to the earthquake!"
The Doctor, Martha, and Artemis stopped in front of a large clearing in the forest at the base of a mountain, blocked by a large gate that appeared to be made of stone.
Artemis gasped and exclaimed, "It's Mt. Othrys! This is Atlas, this is his home."
"Atlas? Like, sentenced to hold up the sky for eternity?" Martha asked.
"Yeah, that's him. He must be up to something. But how do we get past this door? I can try to get it open, but I'm not sure how to," Artemis told them.
"Let me try," the Doctor said, stepping forward. He pointed his sonic screwdriver at the gate and soniced it. The gate shimmered and disappeared, showing a meadow at the base of the Mt. Othrys, and a mob of mortals where Atlas should be.
"Um, Doctor? What's happening?" Martha asked.
"It looks like he's trying to get them to hold the sky for him. He's tried it before. It'll be difficult to get it back to him, though, if he gets them to hold it up first. Because then we'll need to trick him into taking it back, and only Hercules has done that," Artemis explained to them.
"We need a plan," the Doctor said, surprising Martha since he normally never has a plan beforehand.
"You want to come up with a proper plan?" Martha asked, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Well, we're working with a goddess now! We need plans, Martha!" the Doctor exclaimed, clapping his hands together and leading them back into the sheltered area of the forest.
"Okay, so we should find a way to get someone to go in and tell the people the plan," the Doctor explained.
"You mean the plan that we have?" Martha asked, smirking.
"Well, we will have a plan," he said.
"Whoever goes in should get everyone to drop the sky. Since it's Atlas's punishment, he'll be forced to take it back, as long as everyone is about to. As soon as he touches it they need to let go," Artemis outlined the beginning of the plan.
"Then we need someone else to lead everyone out and far away from here, and out of the forest. I'll distract Atlas while we get ready," she continued.
Just then the ground rumbled, shaking the three of them. "The sky must have changed holders, that's what's been causing the earthquakes. We can still do this, it'll just be a little more difficult. Same plan though, I'll get Atlas in place," Artemis finished explaining.
"Okay, I'll go in, Doctor, you lead everyone out," Martha said to the Doctor.
"Alright, now how do we get you in?" the Doctor questioned.
"I have an idea," Artemis said, her face breaking into a grin.
Martha walked into the meadow, thankful for the distraction Artemis was about to provide, and went straight towards the people who were holding the sky.
As Martha approached them, she looked towards Atlas, who was facing the other direction. As she looked up, she saw an arrow race through the air towards the titan. Atlas let out a yell and whipped around to find the source of the arrow.
"You," he sneered when he spotted Artemis. "I'm not about to let some little goddess ruin my freedom for me, I'll kill you before you're arrows can get me."
Martha used the distraction Artemis had created and snuck into the mix of people, turning to them and saying, "We're going to get you out, you just need to follow our plan, alright?"
The people were wary of her at first, but then she convinced them that they really did want to help, and that they had a plan that would set them free.
Martha explained about the Doctor, who was hiding by the gates, getting ready to bring the people away. She told them about Artemis, and about how they would all have to be ready to run from the sky, and slowly let go, one by one, and then when Atlas touched it, that they would need to drop it.
In Artemis's battle with Atlas, she was slowly backing him towards the sky, getting him in position.
Artemis and Martha locked eyes, and then Artemis moved in on Atlas, drawing her silver knives. She pushed him further back, and as he realized what she was doing Martha yelled "NOW!" and the mortals all dropped their arms and ran in the direction Martha had told them to, as Atlas was left once more to hold the sky.
Martha and Artemis didn't follow the others, but stayed behind, waiting for the Doctor to return from leading everyone to freedom.
When he arrived, he was holding a long chain in his hand. "To make sure you don't escape again, if some unlucky traveler happens to pass by you," he told Atlas, chaining him to the mountain, despite Atlas's thrashing and attempts to break the chains.
"That won't work, they're special chains, I even soniced them. They won't break," he explained to the distressed titan.
Martha cast one last look at Atlas before turning and leaving with Artemis and the Doctor.
"That was quite the adventure! Gods, goddesses, titans and the works! Real! Who would've thought?" the Doctor said as they approached the TARDIS.
"Learn something new every day, especially when you're traveling with this one," Martha said, gesturing towards the Doctor.
"Well, I didn't think aliens exist. So tell me Doctor, what exactly does this machine of yours do?" Artemis asked him.
"It's a TARDIS, Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. I stole her, she stole me, she takes me anywhere or anywhen I want to go. Well, not really, she gets it wrong often, but she always takes me where I'm needed," he explained.
"It's bigger on the inside," Martha told Artemis, "it's fascinating, really. You could spend ages just trying to work your way through all the rooms."
"Would you like to see it?" the Doctor offered.
"That's kind Doctor, but I should be getting back to my duties now. Perhaps I'll see the two of you again. Until then," she said, and then ran off into the woods.
"Bye!" called the Doctor and Martha together.
"Alright, where to next?" he asked, walking into the TARDIS.
"I don't know, let's go to a different planet this time," Martha smiled, following him inside.