The Doctor with the eyebrows winced, waiting with his shoulder hunched up for the coming spike of electricity. Everyone else tensed as well, Bill reaching out in an attempt to pull him back. Instead, what happened was a distant clunking noise and the Doctor standing in place despite Bill's tugs, as a door opened up at the other side of the trap on the floor.
"Well, would you look at that, just dumb luck I suppose."
"Watch out!" Nardole was suddenly there to tug the man out of place, harder than Bill had, so much so that the man stumbled backwards and to the side, whilst simultaneously shoving Bill to the side, right as two green tipped silver spears were fired at high speeds out of the opening and connected with the far wall at the other end of the hallway. Still having enough impact, despite the distance travelled, to stick into the wall.
"Nice instincts!" the Doctor in pinstripes congratulated the small bald man who suddenly looked immensely pleased with himself, fixing his jacket's collar with a light shrug.
"Well, my reflexes came from a particularly quick Xantraxi. Of course, they'd slowed them slightly to match up with the brain speeds but I'm still pretty good."
"Is no one going to say 'congratulations Doctor, you've stumbled upon a secret passageway in these secret tunnels. How brilliant of you'?" the Doctor with the eyebrows huffed slightly in annoyance.
"Congrats on almost getting yourself skewered." Donna gave him a sarcastic reply and a light smack on the arm and the man seemingly tried not to pout, instead frowned deeply towards Nardole.
"Maybe you should have let it. I refuse to live in a world where Nardole wins out at anything against me." Nardole was the one to pout this time in offense and the Doctor rolled his eyes at his light 'hey' in response. "Well, now we just have to get across the murder floor to get to the new secret passageway." He paused and looked to the rest of the group, his tone lighter for a second, "you know, if it wasn't for my future self's life being in danger and all the possibility of murder, this would be a lot of fun."
"You're so weird." Bill told him plainly and he could only toss her a quick grin then looked back to the murder floor in question, pulling out the sonic to see if it could give him any help here.
"Oh, well that's fun." He spoke sarcastically as he turned the sonic sideways to take a look at the readings, "not every spot vaporises you. Some have some hidden surprises. Rassilon liked to be varied now didn't he? Can't just be the one type of murdering someone, got to make it all a big surprise. Have a bit of fun with how you die."
"You're seriously still gonna try and get across that by guessing?" Amy asked, "you just almost got speared."
"I wanna see what's through the murder hallway." He countered, "don't you?"
"I think you're getting side tracked sir." Nardole told him softly but he just looked to him and pointed to the secret passageway.
"Maybe she's down the murder hallway? Think positive, come on." He looked back to the floor design and tried to use the sonic to give himself an idea this time of where to go and where to not go. It didn't always help, his arms were only so long and sometimes he'd have to guess it, but eventually he made it across and turned to them, throwing his hands up in celebration. "Now just do exactly what I just did."
He was met by a collection of annoyed blank stares by the humans across the room from him and he only grinned in amusement at the responses. Eventually he told them exactly when to put their feet as they all made their way over and then they were all over and the Doctor in pinstripes led the way down the corridor that had opened up, much to the Eyebrows Doctor's chagrin. "I found the murder hallway," he scoffed to himself under his breath before following the others through the hallway.
As they rounded the corner at the end of it, they walked right into a line of Cybermen who all turned from their positions standing guard against the walls on either side to look to them.
"Alert. Subjects spotted. Defence action taken." There was the sound of machine parts whirring and the four Cybermen stood there all raised their arms down the corridor towards them. The group froze for a moment as the Cybermen began stomping closer.
"What do we do?" Donna asked frantically, looking to the Doctor in front of them for answers.
"Halt. You will be obliterated in the name of the Cybermasters."
"Oh, of course he named them after himself." The Doctor with the eyebrows muttered sarcastically, "get ready to run!"
The lights suddenly started to flash and the Cybermen all lowered their weapons, their focus turning away as something seemed to catch their attentions. The Doctor in the pinstripes dropped his arms from where he'd threw them up to hold the human's back behind him when they'd first come into view of them. The Cybermen then turned and began marching back down the corridor behind them at a fast pace, chanting robotically as they went,
"Defend. Defend. Must defend. Threat detected."
"What happened?" Yaz asked, "why'd they just turn and leave?"
"Dunno, maybe-" the Doctor in pinstripes cut himself off suddenly, both versions of the Doctor present's attentions were suddenly elsewhere. Their gaze went distant and Bill was quick to check on her eyebrow version of him, giving his chest a quick nudge.
"Doctor?"
"They've turned off the psychic block." He spoke absently, mind already seeking out the path of the others and moving them in this general direction because they suspected they were on the right path.
"Can you find her?" Yaz asked quickly.
"We can try. Shh a minute." The Doctor in pinstripes hushed her softly, his focus somewhere off into the distance.
"That must be why the Cybermen pulled back." Nardole stated, "with the psychic block down, the Master's pulled back the reinforcements to defend him, hoping to finish whatever he's doing so they'll keep us out."
"That also means he's brought them to wherever the Doctor is. Should be easier to find where he's hiding out now." Yaz said, determination in her voice, "we've got to find her and help."
"But how?" Nardole asked her, "there'll be an army of Cybermen between them and us."
"Never stopped the Doctor before. And we've got all of them on our side closing in." Yaz told him confidently and motioned to the two Doctors who had closed their eyes and spoke out loud in synch with one another.
"Contact." They reached out their minds and tried to help contacting their future self, knowing that she was somewhere nearby. There was a moment where they saw the Master's mind nearby and searched the area around him. They moment they found her they straightened, distressed at the state in which they found her.
The Doctor felt it the moment the psychic block was lifted, heard the combined voices of her past selves calling out for her and she jolted to life from her slumped position, her mind hazy and filled with unknown variables that she couldn't hope to bring answers to, and struggled to reach back out to them.
"Contact." The word came out as a scrambling gasp and in her mind she pleaded with them for her memories. For them to fill the gaps that this mind wipe machine had made. To not let her lose anything. They, horrified, immediately complied. The shared space between their minds flooded with memories. Flooded with the entire life of the Doctor. Every person, every friend, every planet and adventure and monster and death and injury. Everything. Anything one Doctor didn't know or couldn't remember; another would fill in what was missing. She could suddenly remember all her companions' names. Could remember all the faces of anyone she'd ever met. She remembered all the sacrifices, all the love, all the hate. Anything that had disappeared had suddenly slotted back into place in her brain.
"No!" the Master yelled out, frantically trying to work the controls to accommodate the sudden excess in mental flow throughout the machine but it was a fruitless endeavour as the panel of controls started to spark, along with the band around the Doctor's head and as much as it hurt her she knew she had to keep the connection open in order to escape.
Just as she squeezed her eyes shut she saw the paralysis coils around her past self burst outwards and the panel in front of the Master explode and send him flying backwards as the rest of the lights in the room blew out as well, plunging them into darkness as the Doctor finally lost consciousness, her trouble brain struggling to keep her awake.