"You ready boys?" asked the leader of the gang. His two accomplices nodded. The man nodded back, pressed a button on the device in his hand, and calmly walked into the bank. The three of them leisurely made their way over the counter, helping themselves to the cash found in the tills. One of the three popped into the vault, grabbing fistfuls of money and stuffing it into the bag with no real urgency. Satisfied with their haul the leader nodded, the other two men following him out of the door.

On the way out one of the men swatted away a fly, the insect hanging motionless in the air, before holding up his hand to shield himself from the raindrops suspended around them. The men had little to fear.

Crime was incredibly easy when you possessed the ability to stop time, after all.

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Doctor Who

Stop the Clock

Part 1

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"'ere, what's happening with the TARDIS Doc?" Graham asked, holding his hands over his ears. All throughout the TARDIS an awful screeching sound could be heard, as if the traditional groaning had been turned up to eleven.

"The TARDIS doesn't want to land," said the Doctor, spread-eagled over the console so she could press six different buttons at once.

"Why don't we just go somewhere else then?" Ryan yelled.

"We need to land here," said the Doctor. "TARDIS needs a recharge, and Cardiff is the perfect place to do it."

"Are you saying we're almost out of fuel?" asked Yaz, but no one could hear her as the din grew louder, the TARDIS shaking even more.

"Oh come on," said the Doctor, getting annoyed, grabbing one lever and throwing her entire weight behind it. There was an almighty rumble, and then silence.

Everyone stood, waiting for the next catastrophe, but an eerie calm echoed through the TARDIS.

"Right then," said the Doctor, beaming. "Couple of hours and she'll be good to go. Shall we have a look around?"

"Hang on, you said Cardiff?" said Graham incredulously. "I thought you'd need to go somewhere more exotic to recharge the TARDIS."

"Cardiff is very exotic," said the Doctor. "Nowhere else in the universe like Cardiff. Believe me, I've looked. Almost felt like my life revolved around it a few regenerations ago."

"Err, Doctor," said Ryan, standing by the door, looking out at the scene in front of him. "I don't think something's right."

"Don't you start with this Cardiff bashing," said the Doctor, grabbing her coat and running to the door, before pausing.

"Ah," she said. "Well, yes. This is certainly something different, isn't it?"

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"Why hasn't time restarted yet?" asked one of the three men, the most nervous of the three.

"Oh don't you worry your head about it," said the leader, watching the smoke from his cigarette slowly freeze in the air as it drifted your head about it. "I'm sure it'll fix itself in a little while. I mean it's not like this can go on forever."

"What if it does though?" asked the second of the three men, probably the smartest out of all of them.

"Quit your whining," said the leader in annoyance. "I told ya, everything will go back to normal in a bit. We just need to wait here for a bit so no one catches us."

"If you say so boss," said one of the men, throwing a glance at the other one. Despite what the boss said this wasn't a turn of events either of them were happy with. Still, the boss hadn't let them down before. Surely things would be alright soon enough.

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"This is so weird," said Ryan, popping rain drops out of the air. "How can time be frozen like this?"

"I'm not sure," said the Doctor. "I don't like it at all. The ability to freeze time like this, it requires powerful technology far beyond your race."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," said Graham, watching a fly hang in the air.

"This is Time Lord technology," replied the Doctor. "Very sophisticated technology at that. What's it doing in Cardiff in 2019?"

"Time Lord?" asked Yaz.

"My people," said the Doctor, getting out a yo-yo and playing with it.

"You've never mentioned them before," said Ryan, but the Doctor ignored him, instead focusing on the toy. She let it bounce up and down in front of her, before letting it fly forwards in front of her. Sure enough, after a moment the yo-yo froze, as if being held up by an invisible string.

"Isn't that interesting?" said the Doctor, peering at the yo-yo, slowly moving her hand out. As predicted, the moment her hand touched it it suddenly shot forward, only to stop again.

"Right fam," she said, turning to the three. "You know how I normally tell you not to touch stuff for your own safety, and you inevitably ignore me and end up being swallowed by a giant carnivorous plant?"

"That was one time!" replied Ryan in protest.

"This time I need you to actually listen to me," said the Doctor, not heeding Ryan. "Right now time is passing by incredibly slowly, so slow that it looks like it's standing still. But our personal time streams are still going as normal. In other words, we're going incredibly fast compared to everything else. So whatever do, don't touch anyone."

"Why not?" asked Yaz.

"Imagine being hit by something going the speed of a rocket," said the Doctor. "Only the thing hitting you is someone's finger. You could cause all sorts of damage as their body suddenly accelerates and decelerates at the same time."

"Don't touch anyone, gotcha," said Graham. "What about non-living things?"

"In theory they should be okay," said the Doctor. "I mean you'll have to be careful not to start any fires or anything. But what we really need to do is figure out whose causing this and how to get them to un-cause it."

"Doctor?" asked Yaz.

"What is it Yaz?"

"This bank," said Yaz. "The door's open."

"Yeah, doors do that," said Ryan sarcastically.

"Yeah, I know," said Yaz. "But there's no one around to open it. Surely if this door had just been open someone would be standing next to it?"

"Yaz you're a genius!" said the Doctor excitedly. "Glad to see you paid attention during cop training. Yes, whoever opened the door must have done so when time was frozen. Which means that they must be responsible for this."

"Well that'd explain the gaps in the rain," continued Yaz, nodding to an absence of rain drops.

"Oh I love you guys," said the Doctor. "Normally I'd have to make a fancy gizmo to do all of this. Right, so, we follow the trail and eventually we should be able to find whose behind all this."

"And then what?" asked Ryan.

"Not sure," admitted the Doctor. "It'll probably make more sense when I work out what's going on. Come on!"

With that the Doctor set off down the pathway of missing raindrops, excitedly looking around at the frozen world she found herself in. Her companions followed, likewise enjoying the unusual spectacle. It certainly wasn't something you see every day.

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"Time's still not come back boss," said one of the group, pacing nervously.

"Oh will you calm down," said the leader frustratedly, pacing around their hideout His unhealthy habit of smoking when stressed had backfired considerably, as the smoke failed to go far from where he was sitting, instead hanging around his head as a toxic cloud. He'd quickly filled his favourite areas with smoke, and was now looking for somewhere more comfortable to sit.

The smartest one of the three could tell that the boss was nervous, but that upsetting the boss was probably the worst thing to do at the moment. Instead he just continued to count the money.

"What happens if time never comes back?" asked the young one, wringing his hands.

"Well it would certainly be a problem for the universe," said an unfamiliar voice. All three crooks shot up in shock as they saw a woman standing there, beaming away. Behind her three other people milled around awkwardly.

Without a moment's hesitation all three of them had their guns out and pointed at the intruders.

"Who are you?" barked the leader. "And what are you doing here?"

"Well I'm the Doctor," said the lead woman. "This is Yaz, Ryan, Graham, and we were going to spend a relaxing afternoon seeing the sights of Cardiff but, well, this is much more interesting."

"Why aren't you frozen?" asked the smart one.

"Oh I like you," said the Doctor. "You're asking the sensible questions. But I feel like it's more important that I know why you're not frozen so that I can fix this mess."

"How did you get here?" the smart one said as a follow-up.

"In a police box," said Ryan without thinking it.

"Police?" said the nervous one, fingers trembling. Before any of them could react the man fired his gun, the bullets on a collision course right at the Doctor and her companions!