Mwahahaha! I'm such an evil author. :)
"Seven levels," said Red quietly. "That was level one. Six more to go."
Clara shivered and rubbed her arms. "Is it just me or it chilly in here?"
Cold electric blue lights came on. The foursome looked around them, nervous.
"Cybermen," the Doctor whispered through gritted teeth.
The walls on either side of them were lined with the metal foot soldiers. They seemed dormant.
"Why are they asleep?" said Red.
"It's a trap," said the Master. "It must be."
"Not much of a challenge, is it?" Clara scoffed.
"Do you hear something?" asked the Doctor.
They froze, listening intently. Tiny little metallic taps against the clinical white floor.
"Like...little feet," said Clara. "Like army ants."
"They're getting louder," Red remarked.
The Master corrected her. "They're getting closer."
Clara gasped. "Cybermites!"
From behind the sleeping Cybermen, tiny metal bugs were crawling toward them.
"They'll try to turn you into Cyber-drones! Don't let them!" the Doctor exclaimed.
"How?!" Red exclaimed.
The Master stomped on one with his Italian shoe. "Smash them!"
Red, the Doctor, the Master, and Clara crushed the the mites underneath their shoes as they came in waves. But they were so small, and so quick, and so many, it was hard to keep track of them all.
Clara shrieked as one crawled up her leg. She flicked her leg and the mite went flying into the far wall. "This won't work forever! We need a better plan!"
"My sonic's no good!" the Doctor reminded her.
"Red Lady! Can't you do something?"
"Sorry, Brown Eyes. They're impervious to my electro blast...but..." Red flattened out her palms toward the floor. Her hands glowed red hot. Extreme heat radiated from them, melting the bugs down into harmless puddles of metal on the floor as soon as they got close. Red grinned. "You know what they say. If you can't handle the heat-"
"DUCK!" Clara shouted, pulling Red to the floor. The Cybermen had awoken, and were now shooting at them.
"You resist conversion to the illustrious Cyberman race. You are imperfect. You are an infection. You will be deleted," recited the metal troops together, as one perfect unit.
"Door's open at the far end!" the Doctor cried, pointing at their means of escape.
"We'll never make it through their cannon fire!" exclaimed the Master.
Clara knocked over the Cyberman at the end of the row. It fell into its neighbor and knocked it over, which knocked over the next one...the whole row toppled like giant dominoes.
"Oh, clever girl!" grinned the Doctor, following her example with the other row. The Cybermen were so busy trying to get to their feet, it gave the foursome time to get away.
They made it safely into the next interim chamber. Red grinned at the other three. "We're not doing too badly! We might just win this thing. I wonder if there's some kind of cash prize."
An excellent idea, Red Lady, came the Ringmaster's voice. Perhaps we'll take your suggestion into consideration for future episodes. Well, congratulations, performers. You've all done well up to now. But you'll find that the game will be changing for you in this next round.
"Do your worst!" Red challenged. "We can handle anything you throw at us!"
Careful, Red Lady, warned the Ringmaster slowly. Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, you know. And you know your hubris has gotten you in trouble before. As has your wrath.
Red froze at that. She shared a look with Clara. "What do you mean?" Red asked the Ringmaster.
Never mind that now. It's time for the third ring! Your next challenge is waiting for you ahead. A door opened in front of them. Please proceed.
The foursome moved into the next level.
The Dalek room had been a stone dungeon with a sandy floor and torch lit walls. The Cyberman chamber had been a white walled room with dim, fluorescent blue-white lights. This room was...
"It's the Great Hall!" Clara exclaimed in delight.
"It is!" Red agreed, grinning ear to ear.
"The what?" the Master asked.
"From Harry Potter!" Clara answered.
"Except smaller, obviously," said Red.
"And only one table," Clara added.
"But there's floating candles, just like in the movies!"
"And the ceiling looks like the sky! Oh, it's night time. How lovely, look at the stars!"
"Oh, green and silver banners. Someone's a Slytherin."
"I'm a Ravenclaw," said Clara.
"Ooh, me too!" Red agreed. "Except sometimes I get Gryffindor."
"What the hell are you talking about?!" the Master exclaimed.
Red and Clara looked at each other and grinned. "Muggle," they said at the same time, then laughed.
"Well, it's a dining hall, whatever it is," said the Doctor, inspecting the serving dishes arranged decadently on the long table. "But where's the food? What's being served at the feast?"
"The feast, my delectable ones, is you," said a voice.
The foursome looked up at once.
A great, ugly, greenish blob creature had appeared at the head of the table.
"It's an Abzorbaloff!" the Doctor declared.
The Master looked around. "We're trapped!"
Clara grabbed a butter knife. "We'll fight it off then."
"No," said the Doctor, holding her back. "Don't go anywhere near that thing. One touch and it'll swallow you up. Take you into itself by absorbing you into its skin."
Clara shuddered. "Gross."
The Abzorbaloff was licking its lips with its long, slobbery tongue, sizing up its prey. "Decision, decisions. I think I'll have the older gents as my appetizers. The fat one will serve nicely as my main course; her meat will be so plump, so tender, so juicy. And the pretty one I'll save for dessert. The little ones are always the sweetest."
"What do we do?" Clara squeaked as the Abzorbaloff slowly stalked toward them, cornering them against the wall.
"Whatever you do, do not let it touch you. Not even for an instant," the Doctor said.
"It's slow, not very agile. We can easily outrun it," the Master whispered.
"But where do we run?" Red asked. "We're locked in with that thing!"
The Master eyed an emerald curtain on the wall. "Well we're not going down without a fight!" he declared, ripping the drape down and throwing it over the monster. In the creature's confusion, the gang was able to break away.
The Abzorbaloff growled, untangling himself from the heavy fabric. "Hungry!" he snarled, coming after them.
Clara grabbed a vase from the table and threw it at him. It smacked him right in the face.
"Up here!" Red tugged her up onto the table. She looked at the Doctor. "You've fought one of these before. What's its weakness?"
"The one I fought before was using a stasis field to keep its form. But that was because the Earth's atmosphere had a negative effect on the thing's bio-makeup. We're not on Earth now."
Red formed a small red ball of lightning in her palm. "This'll knock the frosting off him." She lobbed it at him.
But the energy did no harm. Red looked disheartened. "Okay. Let's heat things up then!" She tossed a fireball at him. Still no effect.
"It's no good, Red Lady," said the Doctor, grabbing her arm. "He's rubber and glue. Whatever we do bounces off him-"
"Everything has a weakness, Doctor!" said Red insistently. "I'll try everything in my bag of tricks if I have to!"
"We need to focus on escaping," the Master stressed. "If we can just hold out till the exit appears, we can-dahhhhhhh!"
"Master!" exclaimed the other three in horror as the Abzorbaloff engulfed their friend. The Abzorbaloff had climbed up onto the table with them while they'd been distracted and had grabbed the Master's shoulder.
The Master's face appeared in the lower right of the thing's belly. The Doctor stared at his lover in horror. "Koschei," he whispered brokenly.
"Theta," the Master said back in sorrow.
The Abzorbaloff grinned nastily at the remaining three. "You're next."
The three jumped from the table and scrambled away from the monster.
"Acid!" said Red. "Acid could kill it!"
"Acid could kill the Master too!" the Doctor shouted angrily.
"I'm just thinking!" Red shouted in anguish.
"The exit!" the Master shouted from the monster's stomach. "It's there, at the end of the hall!"
Red grabbed the Doctor's hand. "We have to go."
"I'm not leaving the Master!"
"There's nothing we can do now!" Red said. "We'll be swallowed too if we don't go right now! Let's go!"
The Doctor reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged to the exit, Clara bringing up the rear. The Abzorbaloff was right on her heels, but Clara knocked over a chair, causing it to trip and fall onto its front.
"Oomph!" the Master cried as his face was buried in the carpet.
Just as they were crossing the threshold, the Doctor and the Red Lady heard a sharp screech behind them. They whipped around.
The Abzorbaloff had caught Clara by the ankle.
"Noooooooooo!" Red cried.
The last word on Clara's lips before she was consumed, with fear in her bright brown eyes, was, "Run."
The Doctor pulled Red through the doorway, and it closed behind them, the last thing in Red's sight was Clara being totally absorbed.
