Old Scars
Featuring the Alternate 4th Doctor
Juliet led the Doctor to a chapel on a nearby hill where, inside the chapel, a Dalek sat, its eyestalk looking at the Doctor.
"DOCTOR, IS THAT YOU?" it asked, almost innocently.
"Do you know me?" he responded, edging towards it carefully.
"I REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED. ON EARTH."
"Earth? What do you mean?"
" DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT WE USED TO HAVE? WE SAVED PLANETS. WE LOVED ONE ANOTHER. IT WAS YOU AND ME. ELLIE FINCH AND THE DOCTOR."
"You can't be Ellie Finch. Ellie Finch is in a house just up the road. How can two of the same person exist in the same place?"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN? DON'T YOU REMEMBER HOW WE SOLVED THE MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS? OR ARCHALIA 13?"
The Doctor looked horrified.
"Ellie? How can you be here?"
"I SURVIVED. I ALWAYS SURVIVE. EXTERMINATE!"
The Dalek fired a blast of blue light from its gunstick, but the Doctor dived across, into some pews nearby.
"Doctor, there is no use in resisting!" Juliet yelled, taking out a laser screwdriver and firing it at him yet missing him narrowly.
"Where did you get a laser screwdriver from? There's only one person I know who has a laser screwdriver so I think I need to ask a question."
"Ask me then."
"Do you remember Gallifrey?"
"Don't know the name."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely."
"Then you must know that I always plan ahead. Sorry, must dash."
He rolled down his left sleeve to reveal a vortex manipulator strapped to his wrist. His fingers flew over the controls and he vanished with a blue flash.
The Doctor reappeared on Gallifrey, a metre away from the Timeline Visualiser. He smiled, pleased to see that he now had a way out.
"Time to reconfigure the universe." he said, walking over to the controls and pressing the 'Reset' button.
And everything became white.
The Doctor sat up and found himself in a dense alien jungle. All he could see was green foliage and several blue flies that were fluttering around him.
"Where am I?" he wondered, as he began to run off in one direction, flailing his arms to clear his way.
He eventually discovered a large, bright green rubbery spider's web-like structure which had a young man and a young woman stuck to it. Well, they weren't stuck: half of their body was covered in the green rubbery substance and both of the strangers were trying to escape.
"Hello, can I help at all?" the Doctor asked, taking out a pocket knife from his left jacket pocket and cutting them free.
"Thanks. Who are you and where are we?" the woman queried, looking around in amazement.
"I'm the Doctor and I've lost my ship. But we can find it again if we get to some teleport technology. Who are you two?"
"I'm Lucy Osborne and this is Steven Davis. Are we in Peru?"
"Definitely not Peru, or even Earth."
"You mean we're on an alien planet?" Steven asked, curious.
"Exactly. Now, come on. I have a feeling that we need to go this way."
The three travellers then headed off, unaware of what was following them.
Up ahead, there was an abandoned yet advanced-looking building with, thankfully, a shuttle parked nearby. The Doctor, Steven and Lucy rushed over to the door and stood by it, allowing the Doctor to activate his sonic screwdriver at the door. They then entered the building, locking the door behind them.
"Now, any technology nearby? I noticed a shuttle outside but what we really need is a teleport." the Doctor said, looking at his vortex manipulator, "Because this is running low and it probably doesn't have enough juice for three people."
Steven noticed what appeared to be a teleport pad nearby, except that it had some sort of rubbery green weed covering it. The weed was the exact same colour and substance as the web that he had escaped from earlier. He decided to wonder towards what the green weed was linked up to and the answer to the question in his head terrified him: there was another human, covered in the green weeds, stood by the controls with terrified eyes.
"Help me." it simply said, with an inhuman voice.
Steven jumped back in shock and the Doctor and Lucy rushed over to see what he had found.
"Who are you? And can we help at all?" the Doctor wondered, shielding his new friends from the new threat.
"I am scared. They were beginning to convert me."
"Does he mean 'they' as in 'aliens'?" Lucy wondered.
"Perhaps." the Doctor assumed, before clarifying, "What's your name?"
"I am Jacob. Jacob Jorjanka and I am afraid."
The Doctor shared a look with his new friends, who nodded, and he took out his pocket knife once more and cut Jacob free from the weeds. But, the weeds strangely seemed to regrow as soon as they had been cut.
"Thank you, kind stranger." Jacob said, before the Doctor walked off back to the main room.
After half an hour's search, there was no form of way out apart from the broken teleport pad and the shuttle outside.
"What do we do now?" Lucy wondered, "Should I see if I can get the shuttle working?"
"Good idea. Take Steven with you. I'll try and figure out what's happened to poor old Jacob." the Doctor instructed.
Jacob now looked a bit more human, but had several green blotches on his face and neck where the weeds had been half an hour before. Every now and again he groaned in pain and several more blotches appeared.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was scanning the teleport pad with his sonic screwdriver and found that a strange substance had permanently disabled the teleport function.
"That's the teleport out." he announced to Jacob, "It's been disabled by an organism of some sort."
Jacob then lost his fight against whatever had infected him: he convulsed and shook in pain as his skin turned bright green and he became fatter. His eyes became larger and blacker and his hair vanished.
"Now that's interesting," the Doctor said, looking at the transformed Jacob, "what are you?"
"I feel very odd. My head burns. My mind feels strange." Jacob replied, his voice sounding almost normal but slightly inhuman.
"This planet has been infected with a disease and it's learning. It's learned how to transform human life. Chromazoids? No, not on this scale. This is too much."
Suddenly, Lucy rushed back inside with a look of fright on her face.
"Doctor, Stephen's been infected with something! And what the hell is that?!" she cried, pointing at Jacob.
"He's what happens if we don't help Steven now. Come on!" the Doctor said, rushing off to the shuttle.
Inside the shuttle, the Doctor instantly spotted Steven, who was sat at the controls and had several green tendrils connecting from the ship to various areas on his head and body. The Doctor cut through the tendrils and escorted Steven from the shuttle. Bizarrely however, Steven began to walk towards Jacob and the two infected humans held hands. Steven began to become like Jacob: bright green skin, fatter body, large black eyes and a bald head.
"Doctor, what the hell is going on?" Lucy asked in shock, as she watched Steven and Jacob stand side by side.
"I don't know and I don't know how we're going to solve this, but I'll find a way out. I promise." the Doctor promised, walking back inside the building to try and think of a solution.
When the Doctor had found a chair and sat in it, he noticed that there was a room that he hadn't explored yet. His eyes focussed on something that he could see through a thin crack between the door and the wall. He rushed over to it and pulled the door away, revealing his TARDIS, the one he had stolen from his Gallifrey at the very beginning.
He beamed and ran back outside to get Lucy, Jacob and Steven.
"Lucy, get the others inside! I've got a way out!" he cried happily, escorting them to his TARDIS and unlocking the door.
Once they were all inside, the TARDIS dematerialised, taking the Doctor and his friends to a new destination.
THE END