London, England. Late 1890s. The Doctor arrives in his TARDIS on a wintery day. As he opens the door, he turns around to call his companion, but nobody's there. He is alone. And Clara's gone. Oh Clara, his Clara. The Doctor closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. As soon as he steps on the snow-covered pavement, he realizes that something isn't quite all right. The streets are empty and quiet. He locks the TARDIS and starts walking down the road, not a single sound in the air. Suddenly, he gets pulled aside.
"What are you doing alone in the streets? You could get yourself hurt!" the Doctor gets asked by a girl whose identity is unknown to him, as she's wearing a long coat with a hood covering her face. "Wh-what?" he stutters, "Why would I get hurt just by walking down the street? Who are you anyways?" "You're telling me you don't know what's going on?" she asks. The Doctor shakes his head in denial. The girl looks around and lowers her mask. It reveals a brown-eyed girl, in mid-twenties, with her curly ginger hair making a contrast to the pale white snow. "So you must be new here. Listen, this city has been occupied with extraterrestrial bodies." Nothing new for the Doctor. "I don't know a lot about them, but I've figured out a couple of their traits. They are able to control other people's bodies – not mind, just the body – through a telepathic field they implant on their victim when they bite them. Sadly enough, I've seen it in action, it's quite terrifying. If I'm correct, they call themselves…" "Moderatorises." They both say it at the same time. The Doctor looks shocked. The mysterious girl continues. "As I've heard them, they intend on occupying the entire planet. Unfortunately, they are doing quite well since they have enslaved half of London and thousands are dead." They both get on their feet as the Doctor looks at her, confused but also amazed. "How did you know the race's name? And who are you?" he asks. The girl finally introduces herself.
"My name is Faith. Faith Evans. I'm not from this time. I live in the 2010s, or at least I have lived there a couple of days ago. Then something unexplainable happened, and now I'm here. You wouldn't believe me, but it happened in a blink of an eye." "Weeping Angels" the Doctor mumbled. "And as for the species' name, I've heard it. They exclaim it every time they conquer a new victim. 'For the kingdom of the Moderatorises', they say. And with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?" she asks with a faint smile. "Oh yes. I'm the Doctor. Hello!" the Doctor introduces himself. Faith looks both suprised and confused. "No, no, sorry. Everything's fine." she responds when the Doctor asked her if something was wrong. "Well then, Faith. Since you know a lot about them, want to help me stop them?" No response, just a smile on his friend's face.
"I think that-" as Faith starts to talk, an agonizing scream for help is heard, and then a hack of a sword. Another victim falls. As the duo approaches the corner, they see a tall, troll-like alien with glowing black eyes teleporting himself to an unknown location. When they arrive to the body, the Doctor looks up at the sky, a mix of hatred and disgust on his face. Then he analyzes the victim. "Unwillingly stabbed themselves with a sword. A vampire-like bite on the left shoulder. The Moderatoris warrior must've controlled them." Faith nods in agreement. "You know, I have an idea of how to stop them. But first, we need to go somewhere safer than the street."
They entered an abandoned house. "So you said you know something?" the Doctor asked, a blank look on his face. "It's not very creative, but I'm going logical." Faith started. "I guess it would be possible to stop them from using their telepathic powers for a specific time, like stunning them with a simple, yet efficient hypnosis, right? Well, I've figured out that they take their slaves to their spaceship. What do you think, if we got up there could we find out more?" The Doctor was speechless. "You're brilliant! How did you think of this?" Faith's usually pale cheeks acquired a bright shade of red. "Yes, a hypnosis would surely work. I had the opportunity to investigate one of their ships. They contain their main transmission centres, so it would be possible to confuse it, as well as its users." "Great!" Faith smiled. "But how do we make a hypnosis without an electronic device?" The Doctor took a pen-like device from his coat's pocket and started twisting it around his fingers. "It's a sonic screwdriver" he said. "Able to transmit any frequency, including the one which could stun the strongest creatures." "Well then" Faith stood up, "we have every aspect of our plan – let's go!"
As they approached the alien, he noticed them and exclaimed: "Be prepared to die for the kingdom of the Moderatorises!" "Yeah, I wouldn't be so quick there." Faith started convincing him. "We would like to be your servants." The creature was confused. "And why should we accept you?" "We, um…well, you see,…" Faith stuttered. "I'm smart and she's pretty" the Doctor answered, but as soon as he's seen the offended look on her face, he corrected himself. "I meant to say, we're both smart and pretty." Faith chuckled and nodded. "You shall be transported on the mother ship." the Moderatoris responded after a couple of minutes of silence. He disappeared and came back with two gadget-like bracelets, a timid scarlet light shining from a button on it. The creature handed them out, a clear gesture for the Doctor and Faith to take them. "I am general Dorro. Your positions shall be by the main machine. You must keep the transmission going." As soon as he's said that, the surroundings changed. They teleported into the machine room, with dim yellow light shining on the wall filled with colourful buttons, displays and levers.
"Wait, I thought of something." Faith said with a dizzy voice. "This is all electronic, right? Well, couldn't we just spray some water on the control panel, and it'd shut down the exact moment?" The Doctor helped her stand up. "Are you alright?" She nodded. "Your idea would be good if water wasn't lethal to this race. One single drop on any part of this wall, and it would transmit through the telepathic field. After that, boom - they're dead. All five billion of them. And we really don't want that." Faith looked serious, but her eyes were full of understanding. "You're not human, are you?" The Doctor looked up. "No, I'm not. Does it bother you?" "Not at all," his new friend smiled. "That's good. It'd be awkward if you were scared of me. But we can talk about it later. Anyways, now we must disable this machine. What if I tried reversing the polarity of the neutron flow? He was confused before, but he stopped in track when he heard Faith's giggling and saying it's impossible. "You see," she started explaining when she calmed down, "as far as my knowledge goes, neutrons are neutral particles and so is their flow. Since neutral particles don't have a polarity, you can't change something to positive or negative if it's a zero. Also, you can't reverse something that hasn't been altered. And as we've realised neutrons can't be changed, neither can you do it. Therefore, you basically aren't doing anything at the moment."
They both started laughing. "I like you, Faith Evans. You should stick around." The Doctor said with a grin on his face. "Could I first go and see if I could find something of use on the ship?" she said, also with a smile. "Go ahead. But be careful. I don't think they're very friendly." he said, tangling with ropes and wires. As Faith entered the bright-lighted hallway, not a single sound was heard. Suddenly, the light on her bracelet changed to black and started bleeping. Two Moderatorises came to her, what seemed like out of nowhere, and cuffed her. "Oh, come on!" she exclaimed, "I can't even go for a walk!" She was taken to a big round room, highly decorated and elite. Somebody was sitting in the chair in the other side of the desk. It was general Dorro. "Prisoners must not leave their workplaces," the creature said with dignity in his voice, "is that understood?" Faith nodded. "As for punishment, you shall spend the next 24 hours in the basement cell. If this happens again, you shall be executed." Another soldier came in and saluted. "Sir," he spoke very quickly, "the captives have started a rebel in the Alpha-Five section. Shall I bring them here?" "No need," general Dorro said coldly, "execute them. And as for the human, take her to the cells."
Soon, Faith found herself in a locked room, various shades of dark stones covering the cold walls. Very unlike the rest of the ship, she thought. She wasn't alone. A middle-aged woman was dragged in a couple of minutes later, many swear words coming from her. "Those bloody aliens really found a place to live, eh?" she asked Faith. The two have started talking, but she really didn't like that woman's attitude. After what has seemed like hours, three Moderatorises came, one holding another prisoner. As Faith realised it was the Doctor, she started laughing. "You too?" He nodded and gave her a faint smile. "The other captive will prepare for execution. The woman looked offended. "To hell with that!" she yelled and spat the soldier in the face. He started shaking and fell to the floor as he stopped breathing. As the Doctor rushed to the body, Faith was disgusted. "Why did you kill him?" she said with calm anger in her voice. "He deserved it," the woman said while exiting the cell. "You okay?" the Doctor felt his friend was disturbed. "Yeah, you?" she said while examining something on the cell floor. "Hey, could you use that device of yours on this area here?" As he used the sonic on the slightly lighter block, it moved aside to show a strange pen-like gadget. "It's a sonic pen!", he exclaimed happily, "come on. Let's get back to the machine room. I think our job here's finished."
As they arrived in the small room, the Doctor plugged the newly obtained tool next to his screwdriver. Then he took his glasses, put them on and said "Turn 360 degrees clockwise. And all the Moderatorises obeyed. "Your turn," he gave them to Faith, "you know what to do." "Land the ship in the city below us and release all of your prisoners." Finally they were on steady ground, as she took the glasses off. "You're the boss," she said with a smile. The Doctor was the last to order. "Leave this planet and do not return to it." The entire spaceship disappeared in a matter of seconds.
"Faith Evans." the Doctor said, with a bit of happiness and pride in his voice, "you were brilliant today. Fancy a trip?" She raised an eyebrow, but still smiling. "Where to?" "Anywhere in time and space," he said while opening the TARDIS doors. She looked shocked. "But that's impossible!" "Any remarks?" he asked with a grin on his face. "Well, it's obviously bigger on the inside, you really cannot travel the world in a phone box, now can you?" "Yeah, you're right. Any certain destination?" he asked. "Let it be your choice," she watched him pulling many levers. "Oh Faith, the places we'll go!" the Doctor exclaimed as they drifted off.
A new episode coming soon!