The TARDIS materialized in a small crevice, a few meters or so beneath the ground. A storefront-style grate separated the small chamber from a passage. The ceiling was open, revealing a grey, ash-filled sky above. The walls were tiled with a surface that used to be white, now stained brown by dust. The doors of the Police Box opened, and The Doctor stepped out, followed by Jack and Torrent. The three looked around, The Doctor serious, Torrent in a state of shock and awe, and Jack trying not to cry. Sirens could be heard in the distance, and smoke filled the sky. A few ruined buildings could be seen from the bottom of the crevice.

"London, in the future..." The Doctor said, "... Or at least, what's left of it." Jack stifled a few sobs, closed his eyes, and tried to cover his ears. The Doctor continued. "Who else but the Daleks would cause so much destruction?"

Jack turned to the TARDIS. "I can't take this anymore... I'll be in the TARDIS. Let me know when you're done." He walked inside, and Torrent could see him sit in one of the chairs beside the console. Jack covered his face with his hands, and he cried to himself. Torrent turned back to The Doctor, and motioned "Let's just leave him be." A round, bronze flying saucer crashed into one end of the rectangular hole, sending chunks of rock and asphalt crashing down. Among the debris, a vworrping sound echoed through the chamber as the TARDIS dematerialized, its HADS going berserk. The Doctor watched with a stunned expression.

"No... No... My TARDIS... And in a beginner's hands, as well..." He turned to Torrent, who was looking around from the bottom of the hole. "Alright, let's get to it. I need to find a way up onto the street. I don't want to be late for the surprise welcome party." He turned to the grate, removing a device from his pocket. "These broken shutters are nothing the Sonic Screwdriver can't handle."

-\|/-

Jack looked up from his fetal position. The Time Rotor was working overtime, but The Doctor was nowhere to be found. Jack walked up to the console. Some silvery metal bricks had fallen and blocked a good chunk of the console and scattered a bunch of bricks onto the floor, but the main flight circuits seemed undamaged. He looked at the arrays of buttons and levers on the six sides of the console, and tried to make sense of them all. He looked over at the TARDIS viewscreen, and saw the TARDIS showing a sort of "Place hands here" kind of moving picture accompanied by some loops of Gallifreyan text. He put his hands into the designated notch in the console, and the TARDIS hummed in response. He thought of Torrent and The Doctor... and the TARDIS whisked him off to a wild ride.

-/|\-

Torrent and The Doctor ran onto the street. Up here, the destruction looked just as bad as it sounded. Ruins were everywhere, and several of the wrecks were burning. They ran into the central square, as a Dalek ship flew overhead.

"DALEKS ARE THE MASTERS OF EARTH! DALEKS ARE THE MASTERS OF EARTH!" It lasered a canyon in a nearby street, making a bus an impromptu bridge but destroying the only way to climb up onto it. The Doctor sighed.

"Right on cue... Not so nice to see you again."

A pair of grey Daleks trundled out from behind the pair. "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!" The Doctor looked back in surprise. "Get down!" He bowled Torrent over as two death ray shots sailed over their heads. Torrent was up in a flash, brandishing his sword. The Daleks were quickly decapitated, much to The Doctor's chagrin. "Problem solved," Torrent said. "What now? There's obviously more Daleks out there." The Doctor looked to a third street, searching for a place to go. The Daleks had thought of this option too, however, and blocked off access with a sort of forcefield. "A Dalek energy shield..." The Doctor looked at the sentry towers on either side. "... And heavily guarded too. There's nothing getting past that in one piece." Torrent had an idea.

"It must be something important. What if we shut it off?"

The Doctor smiled. "Yes... That's a great idea! There must be a power source nearby, and chances are we'll find a few more Daleks too."

Torrent scanned the burnt landscape, until The Doctor approached a vaguely Daleky structure.

"Don't feel dumb if you missed it, it's got a perception filter. Hiding in plain sight." The Doctor sonicked the generator open, examining a crystal inside. "Aha! What do we have here? Unmistakably Dalek technology... And if my calculations are correct... and they are... then this is one of the generators for the energy shield." He sonicked the inner workings, causing the resonator to shatter and the generator to shut down. The generator started beeping quite loudly, and Daleks seemed to start coming from the woodworks of the ruins, advancing on the travellers. Torrent put away his sword, and strung his necklace around his neck.

-\|/-

Jack held on as the TARDIS rocked and shook. The various parts on the floor skittered to one side and the other as the TARDIS fell through the Time Vortex. Finally, with a wheeze and a bang, the TARDIS stopped moving, its journey complete.

Until something started banging at the the door. The doors groaned under the onslaught, and Jack could've sworn he heard something rasp "EXTERMINATE" as it wailed against the portal. The doors suddenly opened, and Torrent and the Doctor ran in. The Doctor snapped his fingers, and the doors closed and locked.

"You can turn," The Doctor huffed, "into a DRAGON?"

"It's magic," Torrent puffed, "from another dimension." He caught his breath, and turned to Jack.

"You cut that close," Torrent scolded. "We nearly got killed. There was a particle blaster!"

"Hey, you're alive and in what I'm going to assume is the most impregnable place in the Universe."

"He's right," The Doctor said, "Genghis Khan tried to break in once. He couldn't. Where to now? Disabling the generator there didn't power down the forcefield, so there must be more. What have we overlooked so far?"

"How about the crevice caused by the laser? We haven't bridged that." Torrent suggested.

"Yes! We'll need some sort of tall object to get over onto the bus. Some thing with lots of handholds..."

"A tree?" Jack asked.

"Yes, a tree. Or something like that."

"Well, we'd need to wait 10 years or so before it's tall enough to climb. Anyone got any ideas?" Torrent objected.

"Look around you," The Doctor said. "You're in a time machine. We've literally got all the time in the world!"

"But..." Jack said, "Doctor... The impact of the debris from earlier destroyed the part of the console you used to fly us here. We're stuck."

The Doctor looked around the floor of the TARDIS, examining the different-shaped bricks around the console. "Actually..." he said, "I have an idea."

The Doctor walked around the console room, gathering the different bricks, assembling them into a small metal machine. It had a laser mounted on a head shaped like a dog's, and its main body was trapezoidal and light grey. White letter plating identified it as K-9. The Doctor sonicked some of the impromptu circuitry, and various lights flashed on the robot. The Doctor replaced the access door.

"System restarting... All primary drives functioning." The robot turned its head, and examined the three TARDIS travellers with its photoreceptors.

"Accessing memory banks... TARDIS security data found. Reading..." K-9 turned to the Doctor. "Pilot identified: Doctor, the. Time Lord. 13th regeneration." K-9 turned to Torrent. "Passenger identified: No last name given, Jack. Prefers to be called Torrent. Human." K-9 trundled in Jack's direction. "Passenger identified: No last name given, Jack. Species unknown. Further study required."

The Doctor looked at Jack curiously. He waved the sonic screwdriver at Jack, scanning him. He opened up the core, and examined the readings. "K-9's right," he said, astonished, "you don't read as human. I'd assumed you were, but there's an abnormality in your DNA, comprising something like..."

"Crystal?" Jack finished, fingering his pendant. "It's magic from another dimension, inextricably tied to my... soul, consciousness, life force, use whatever word you want for it. It's still a part of who I am."

"Oh, I see," The Doctor said, understanding. "Do you have any special powers you want to show me now?"

"I would, but it's a bit cramped for it in here. I might break or crush something."

"That's alright. We can try it outside."

"There's a bunch of hatey death machines out there, remember?" Torrent said. "We'll need to try it somewhere else."

"That reminds me," The Doctor said. "K-9, there's debris blocking the console. Blow it up." K-9 wordlessly turned to the console debris, and fired its nose laser. Within a plancktime, the chunks of metal were gone. The Doctor stepped up to the navigation console, and set a destination.

"I'm going to the armoury," Jack said. "Who know what we'll find when we return here."

The Doctor threw the dematerialisation lever, and the TARDIS vworrped into the Time Vortex.