AN: In honour of the premiere of the confusing fourth episode of season 9, I bring you this update! Enjoy!

Chapter 10: The Fires of Pompeii Part 3

As soon as she fainted, everyone but me and Lucius went automatically to Evelina's aid. Her mother even cried worriedly, "Evelina!" But I knew that she would be fine.

The Doctor happened to be standing the closest to her and he checked her pulse on her neck and on her wrist. "She's alive," he pronounced. "She's only fainted."

I sighed heavily as Metella breathed, "Oh, thank the Gods," and held her daughter close to her. Caecilius came closer and offered to carry Evelina to another room to be looked after and Metella gently placed her limp body into Caecilius' waiting arms. Donna, Metella and Quintus followed him to a nearby room while I stayed with the Doctor and watched as Lucius ordered his men to carry the stone circuit out of the villa. When he had left, I turned to the Doctor and asked, "So, what do you think they were talking about, then?"

He glanced at me from where he had been staring thoughtfully at middle distance and replied, "What do you mean?"

"The soothsayers, or psychics, or whatever you want to call them. How do you think they knew that much stuff about us?"

The Doctor clucked his tongue and exhaled noisily. "I don't know yet. That's a change," he chuckled. "Do you know?"

I grinned toothily, a bit like the Chesire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, and said, "Doctor, I always know."

He only had time to roll his eyes before Caecilius came back from Evelina's room. He scratched his head and declared, "Well, Evelina's settled down. I apologize for the, er, spell she had. Happens every now and then, what with her being a seer."

"Oh, that's alright. I was wondering, though, if I could have a look at your hypocaust over there," the Doctor asked, pointing over to the hypocaust where fumes could be seen rising out. I shuddered as I realized that that hypocaust was where the adult Pyroviliian would come out.

"Sure, but why would you want to examine it?" Caecilius questioned as he walked to other side of the room for a candle holder.

The Doctor was already on his way over there, but he answered, "Just been wondering about it, is all." He reached it and pried the grille off with a grunt. "Different sort of hypocaust?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. We're very advanced in Pompeii. In Rome, they're still using the old wood-burning furnaces, but we've got hot springs, leading from Vesuvius itself." He remarked proudly as he sat down next to me and the Doctor.

"Who thought of that?" I asked as the Doctor opened his mouth to ask the same question. He grumbled under his breath and gave me a look.

"The soothsayers, after the great earthquake, seventeen years ago. An awful lot of damage. But we rebuilt." He looked at me more closely and inquired with a curious expression, "Where are you three from, by the way? Your attire is... strange." He cast a quick glance to my black track shorts and pink T-shirt. "And Lord Lucius said that you were from another world, correct?"

I looked him in the eye and replied, "Yes, I am from another world. As for where we're from, we're from the future." Caecilius withdrew a little bit, stunned, and the Doctor stared at me, wide-eyed.

"Joyce..." he muttered admonishingly.

"It's true, though," I declared cheerfully.

"But that's nonsense," Caecilius sputtered. "What other world is there, other than the Earth? And how can you be from the future?"

"Never mind that for now, Caecilius. What I want to know is more about the earthquake. Why didn't you think about moving away after it?" The Doctor paused, then added, "Oh no, then again, San Francisco."

Caecilius frowned. "That's a new restaurant in... Naples, isn't it?"

Suddenly, there was a distant rumbling coming from the hypocaust and the Doctor looked down, startled. "What's that noise?"

"Don't know. Happens all the time. They say the gods of the Underworld are stirring," Caecilius answered. I studied him; now that his tone was more grave, he reminded me more of the Twelfth Doctor. To this day, I don't know why Caecilius and the Twelfth Doctor have the same face, but I'm guessing that it had something to do with the rift in time created by Vesuvius exploding. Actually, that could explain Amy's face appearing as the Sibylline soothsayer that was following us...

"...they'd always been, shall we say, imprecise?" I zoned back in to the conversation between Caecilius and the Doctor. "But then, the soothsayers, the augurs, the haruspex, all of them, they saw the truth again and again. It's quite amazing. They can predict crops and rainfall with absolute precision."

The Doctor was nodding all through Caecilius' explanation. Then he asked with knitted brows, "Haven't they said anything about tomorrow?"

I looked at the Time Lord pointedly as Caecilius responded, looking bewildered, "No. Why, should they? Why do you ask?"

Glancing between the Doctor and Caecilius, I wondered how he'd answer that. "No, no. No reason. I'm just asking," he said very casually. "But the soothsayers, they all consume the vapours, yeah?"

Caecilius nodded affirmatively. "That's how they see." I looked at each man's face and marvelled at how it was like two Doctors were talking to each other.

The Doctor put his glasses on and looked down into the hypocaust again. "Ipso facto,"* he remarked.

"Look, you..." Caecilius started.

The Doctor reached an arm down and collected some substance from the hypocaust. He sprinkled it into the air. "They're all consuming this," he announced. Me and Caecilius looked closer. It was a fine, powdery-like grainy thing, like dust. In fact, Caecilius asked if it was dust. But the Doctor corrected, "Tiny particles of rock." He tasted a bit of the powder (eww!) and commented solemnly , "They're breathing in Vesuvius."

"What do you mean, they're breathing in Vesuvius? Would that be harmful?" Caecilius demanded, probably worried for his daughter.

The Doctor jumped up and placed the grille back on with a clang. "Oh, I don't know. Might be, might not. Anyways, I need to ask your son - Quintus, was it? - something. Something important."

"Quintus? Why, he's in the dining room. Probably drinking more wine, the foolish boy." Caecilius shook his head.

I chuckled and the Doctor smiled and replied, "Thank you." Caecilius nodded soberly and left the room.

I looked to the dining room and asked, "Hey Doctor, what do you want with Quintus?"

"Oh, I don't want too much. Just the address of Lucius Petrus Dextrus." He smirked and shrugged.

I laughed and inquired, "Okay, but why?"

He shook his head amusedly. "You're always asking questions, Joyce. I want to know because there's something strange going on here. The people of this time period definitely shouldn't have invented circuits, and especially not in marble, so I would like to know where that Lucius man got the design from. Other than, you know, on the rain and mist and wind." This last bit was said quite mockingly.

Snickering, I remarked, "Well, we don't have all day. Let's go ask Quintus and see if he knows where Lucius Dextrus lives." I headed for the dining room.

"Hold on a second," the Doctor called to me. I stopped short and looked back at him. "Why don't you just go in by yourself? I have a feeling that Quintus will take more kindly to a girl his age asking him for directions than if I did. If I ask him, I'll have to end up paying him."

I made a face, but he gestured for me to go in, so I sighed and continued on into the room. Quintus was drinking lazily from a goblet of liquid (probably wine) and reclining on a couch. "Hey, Quintus?"

He looked up with a curious expression and answered, "Yeah?"

"Do you know where that man, Lucius Petrus Dextrus, lives? I need to know."

He smiled and sat up more. "It should be nothing to do with me, but for a pretty face, I'll do almost anything." I grinned back and mentally cursed the Doctor for so obviously setting me up. "Sure, I know where he lives. Would you like me to guide you there, Tanaquil?"

"Yeah, okay."

He got up fully and we left the room together, his goblet of wine forgotten on the table. The Doctor was leaning against the wall a few steps away, hands in pockets. He joined us as we left the villa, Quintus quickly grabbing a torch on the way out. "Mind if I join you?" the Doctor asked. "I'm a bit curious about those marble slabs too," he added as way of explanation. Quintus shrugged and continued to quietly lead the way down the road and around a few corners to Lucius' villa.

During the walk there, me and Quintus talked for a bit. We discussed what life was like in Pompeii, what type of career he thought he'd have, how crazy parents could be and other things like that. He said that life in this city could be pretty fun if you knew where to go, but his father was apparently always trying to get him to clean up his act and get trained in the business of marble to follow in his father's footsteps. I asked him what he wanted to do when he was older and he replied that he didn't actually know, so for now he was just going to laze around and enjoy his life. I laughed, appreciating his view on things.

Finally, we arrived at a more posh-looking villa. We walked up to a side window with barrels under it and Quintus pleaded, "Don't tell my dad."

The Doctor jumped up on the barrels and opened the window with a protesting creak. "Only if you don't tell mine," he whispered teasingly back. Then, he entered the window.

While waiting outside, Quintus explained to me, "It's bad enough that I'm outside at night without telling him first. If he finds out that I left the house with a strange girl, he'll have a fit."

I giggled. "Oh, so I'm strange, then?"

"Well, you are interesting, with your odd apparel and those twin lenses upon your face." He pointed to my glasses.

"Oh, you mean my glasses? They're lenses specially designed to correct my vision, which is too blurry. I get my bad vision from my parents."

Quintus opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by the Doctor sticking his head out out of the window and calling, "Pass me that torch."

Quintus did and looked around nervously before mumbling to me, "I don't like standing outside in the open like this. I'm going in."

"Yeah, me too." And with that, I stepped up to the barrels and crawled on before worming my way in the window. I looked back and beckoned Quintus to come as well. "What are you waiting for?" I whispered. "Come on!"

He sighed, shook his head and joined us. By now, the Doctor was looking at a curtain and when he noticed that we had entered, he handed the torch to me and pulled the curtain off. Of course, it revealed six marble circuits in two rows of three. I heard Quintus exclaim, "The liar!" and I shushed him. But he went on, "He told my father it was the only one."

The Doctor put on his glasses and drawled, "Well, plenty of marble merchants in this town. Tell them all the same thing, get all the components from different places, so no one can see what you're building."

There was a brief pause, then Quintus inquired confusedly, "Which is what?"

"The future, Doctor!" another voice piped up from behind us suddenly. We all turned as one to face one Lucius Petrus Dextrus, accompanied by two guards. "We are building the future, as dictated by the gods. Kill them." This last bit he ordered to the guards behind him, and they stepped forward and drew their swords. I froze, nearly dropping the torch in shock, and Quintus' breath picked up speed.

The Doctor instantly was in front of me, arms out to the side. "Hold on! Hold on... just a minute. Before I die, I have something to say."

"And what would that be, Doctor?"

"These stone boards, they're not in the right arrangement. You don't even know how to put them together, do you?" he replied, gesturing with his head to the circuit boards behind us.

Lucius didn't speak for a moment, and I held my breath. My heart felt heavy in my throat. Finally, he admitted, "You may illuminate me." He also motioned for the two guards to stand down, and they did. I exhaled in relief.

The Doctor turned around and started talking to himself. "Okay," he began. He turned one tile upside down in its place. Then, the Doctor picked up a different tile, saying, "Hold this," and handed it to Quintus. "Put this one there," he said as he transferred another tile to its place. Finally, with a, "This one there," the Doctor placed the tile that Quintus was holding in the only empty space. "Er, keep that one upside down, and what you got?"

"Enlighten me," Lucius replied crisply.

I smirked as the Doctor mocked, "What, the soothsayer doesn't know?"

The augur only remarked, "The seed may float on the breeze in any direction."

"Yeah, I knew you were going to say that," the Time Lord stated before continuing. "But it's an energy converter."

"An energy converter of what?"

"I don't know. Isn't that brilliant?" The Doctor grinned widely. "I love not knowing. Keeps me on my toes." He skipped over to Lucius and sort of sat next to him. For god's sake, Doctor, I thought. "It must be awful being a prophet, waking up every morning, is it raining? Yes, it is, I said so. Takes all the fun out of life. But who designed this, Lucius, hmm? Who gave you these instructions?" He eyed the man up and down, who was beginning to look very disgruntled.

"I think you've babbled enough." Honestly, did the man just have a default expression of one who's just eaten a lemon?

In a lower voice, one meant to invoke trust in most people, the Doctor said, "Lucius, really, tell me. Honestly, I'm on your side. I can help." The only problem with that was that Lucius wasn't in trouble, he was doing all this most willingly. I rolled my eyes, but no one noticed.

"You insult the gods. There can only be one sentence. At arms!" I jumped as Lucius ordered his men to draw their swords again and the Doctor snapped off his glasses and stepped back.

"Morturi te salutant,"** he remarked.

Lucius, the idiot, gloated, "Celtic prayers won't help you now."

Suddenly, I heard Quintus pipe up from the left, "But it was them, sir. They made me do it. Mister Dextrus, please don't." Coward, I thought. I reached over and slapped him on the arm admonishingly. He gave me a nervous glance.

"Come on now, Quintus, dignity in death." The Doctor turned back to Lucius. "I respect your victory, Lucius. Shake on it?" He held out his hand, but Lucius didn't take it. "Come on. Dying man's wish?" He didn't even shake the Doctor's hand then.

Of course, the Doctor, getting no response from Lucius but a sour look, lunged forward and ripped Lucius right arm from his shoulder. I shouldn't have been surprised, but the crack that echoed around the room made me nauseous.

"But he's - " Quintus began in shock.

The Doctor cut him off and whispered, "Show me."

Lucius threw off the right side of his cloak to expose his calcified grey upper arm, now missing the rest of the appendage. "The work of the gods," he said by way of explanation.

"He's stone," poor Quintus observed from the corner.

"Armless enough, though." The Doctor, brilliant alien he is, threw Lucius' stone arm back to the man. "Whoops!" Then, he yelled, "Quintus! Joyce!"

I threw the torch at a guard and the Doctor soniced the stone tiles, which made them tumble to the floor with a clatter. All three of us dashed to window and jumped out, me nearly losing my balance upon impact with the street outside, but the Doctor held me up. I heard Lucius shout, "The carvings!" in a panicked voice inside and wished that they had actually been damaged. Then, maybe the city wouldn't have burned.

"RUN!" the Doctor screamed as he pushed me and Quintus ahead of him, looking back for any followers as he did so. Until then, I don't think I've ever run so fast in my life. We ran down the street and around two corners before the Doctor decided that he we had run far enough. "No sign of them," he announced, glancing around.

Quintus and I leaned down and put our hands on our knees, very out of breath. I really need to get a better stamina, I concluded. "Nice little bit of allons-y. I think we're alright." The Doctor patted me and Quintus on the back and I straightened, getting ready to run. I had just remembered that this was when the adult Pyrovile started to follow the Doctor and Quintus on orders of Lucius.

"But his arm, Doctor." Quintus paused. "Is that what's happening to Evelina?" he continued in an anxious tone.

Abruptly, a rumbling could be heard to our right, down the street. A dog started to bark. The rumbling was coming closer and closer. "What was that?" the Doctor wondered aloud. Him and Quintus were both facing the direction of the noise, but I was facing the opposite direction, stretching my leg muscles and preparing myself for a sprint. The next time I go on an adventure with the Doctor, I am bringing extra electrolyte drinks and water bottles.

"The mountain?" Quintus asked as he stared apprehensively at Vesuvius.

"No, it's closer," came the Doctor's distracted reply as he watched some carts of goods fall over from the earth trembling. His eyes widened and he turned ever so slightly to the left to start running when he finally realized what the sound was, since it had a certain rhythmic beat. "Footsteps," he breathed in a horrified voice.

Quintus gaped at him. "It can't be!"

But the Doctor only looked down. "Footsteps underground," he amended quietly.

"What is it? What is it?"

But Quintus' question went unanswered as the Doctor suddenly pivoted and literally dragged me and Quintus with him, sprinting away at top speed. I ducked and covered my head with my arms as hypocaust grilles burst off around us. You know how I said before when we were running from Lucius' villa that I didn't think I'd ever run so fast in all my life? Yeah, scratch that. Now I felt like I was running for my life. Which makes sense, since we were being pursued by a giant lava-rock alien which could run underground and spew fire.

At last, Caecilius' villa came in sight and we burst through the door without even bothering to open it, so it flew off its hinges. "Caecilius? All of you, get out!" the Doctor cried.

Donna ran to us, alarmed. "Doctor, Joyce, what is it?"

"I think we're being followed," he answered solemnly.

We all jumped and turned to the hypocaust when the grille actually flew off and landed a few feet away. The footsteps were awfully thunderous by now. "Just get out!" I screamed with all the meager breath I had in me. The Doctor started to push everyone to the exit, but we all looked back when the floor started to crack mightily around the hypocaust.

Adrenaline nearly drowned me as a fully-grown Pyrovillian soldier emerged, its head almost scraping the ceiling when it stood. Holy crap...

"The gods are with us!" Evelina assumed.

"Water! We need water! Quintus. Joyce. All of you, get water! Donna!" The Doctor, bless him, had figured out how to get rid of a magma creature. I was too frozen to do anything but stand and gawk at the otherworldly behemoth not ten feet away.

A poor slave stepped forward and announced, "Blessed are we to see the gods."

His "god" inhaled, about to incinerate the man. Then, in one exhale, a burst of fire burned him to ash instantly. Just like that. I was appalled and sickened just by the mere sight. The Doctor stared for a second in astonishment, then he looked up at the Pyrovillian, putting his hands up to calm it down and moving in front of everyone else.

"Talk to me. That's all I want. Talk to me. Just tell me who you are. Don't hurt these people!" Of course, he got no response. Briefly, I wondered if it could actually talk. The Doctor tried again. "Talk to me. I'm the Doctor. Just tell me who you are."

At long last, Quintus and a slave returned with each a bucket and Quintus scooped some water and threw it on the creature. The Doctor pushed him back behind him and we all watched with bated breath as the alien's internal magma cooled and hardened, rendering the being basically dead as its rock carapace crumbled and fell to the floor in a heap.

My god. We all gaped at the rocks on the floor, too stunned to act or say anything. The room was silent and still. Then, Caecilius' nervous voice broke the tension. "What was it?"

"Carapace of stone, held together by internal magma," I replied faintly.

The Doctor nodded. "Not too difficult to stop, but I reckon that's just the foot soldier."

Metella now stepped forward. "Doctor, or whatever your name is, you bring bad luck on this house."

"Frankly, Metella, your son just saved all of our lives. Aren't you a bit more preoccupied with that?" I snarked. She glared at me, but opened her arms and hugged Quintus close to her.

I crept closer to the Doctor, who was contemplating the Pyrovillian. "Still, if there are aliens at work in Pompeii, it's a good thing we stayed," he muttered. Hearing no reply, he glanced sideways at me, then looked over his shoulder, scanning the room. "Joyce, where's Donna?" he inquired uneasily.

"Don't know," I answered, though I did. She must have been taken by the Sibylline sisters.

"Donna?" the Doctor called. No response. "Donna?" Nothing. "DONNA!"

Latin translations:

*By the very fact

**I am about to die so I salute you