Wind and rain swept through the graveyard, coating the grassy soil with moisture. Tombstones caked in moss and covered in cracks betrayed the location's abandonment. Next to the graveyard and behind a decrepit and rotting wooden fence was a lake, but it may as well have been a breeding ground for algae. A willow tree hung over this lake, its hanging leaves mimicking tears. A church, with its stained-glass windows mostly shattered also stood in the near distance. And then the Doctor and Missy materialized and smacked face-down into the ground. Wasting no time in regaining his breath, The Doctor rolled away and leaned against a tombstone, careful not to put his full weight on it. A hand to his chest, he watched as Missy grunted whilst standing up, using another tombstone as a support.
"Well, it looks like we're in the right place." The Doctor said with a frown. "And I don't mean for marriage."
"Oh, dear me. Whatever shall I do with you?" Missy looked sympathetically at The Doctor. She still held her disintegrating device, and the charge was double that of earlier - at twenty percent. "Leaving behind little Clara, all to take care of me?"
"You're wrong." The Doctor replied sternly. "I didn't leave her behind. She knows what to do. And I know what I have to do to stop this world falling apart."
"Really Doctor, you should take a day off for your birthday, you know." Missy giggled. "Saving the worlds you visit every day must get so exhausting. Look at us. We're the Last Time Lords, and in a graveyard no less. What do you say we have an outing and retire, hmm?"
"You're insane. You've always been insane. And do you know why I've saved you all of these times?" The Doctor cocked his head to one side, pointing at Missy. "It's not love. It's because I've felt responsible for you. Ever since Gallifrey. And that's not true. We're not the Last of the Time Lords."
"We're not?" Missy raised an eyebrow.
"No." The Doctor advanced a step toward Missy, raising his hand with the bracelet that Missy had forced onto his wrist. "This is Gallifreyan technology. The Nethersphere is Gallifreyan technology too. You didn't have them the last time we met. You know where Gallifrey is."
"Yes, I do. Did you never think to look in its original location?" Missy giggled as the Doctor stared at her, and moved to twirl her umbrella but realized she must've lost it in the fall. Her losses considered and briefly grieved, she raised her disintegrating device to look at it again. It was about half recharged. "Ordinarily, I would teleport out and leave you here. A little paradise. I could shift it around a bit, you know. A nice garden, how about that?" She raised her hands in the air as if to welcome the wind and rain that caused their clothes to flutter. "But of course, my device can't teleport me out for another minute!" And lowering her arms, she went on to explain: "It's a shame I had to use the teleporter function earlier, but you really should thank the Gallifreyans for their foresight in separating the cooldown periods for the teleporter and disintegrator." She winked. "Or we'd be... pancakes!"
The Doctor chuckled, with a small smile. "Then that gives me time to do what I need."
"To rule the planets your way? That's right, Doctor. Take these Cybermen. Rule them. Win all those battles, those wars that everyone you ever loved, died in. Become who you truly are, and who you should be. Other than that, what could you possibly do? Leave them to rot? Become a Destroyer of Worlds, for allowing the Cybermen to destroy Earth?" Missy asked, leaning on the tombstone near her as she waited for his answer.
"I am no Destroyer of Worlds, Mistress." The Doctor bowed his head slightly. "I don't interfere in what is already going to happen. I don't need to." He looked up again, studying Missy's changing expression. "Because I have those whom I know, and those I knew. Those people out there that you killed and heartlessly turned into Cybermen. They're my allies now, because they know I would never throw their lives away, like you did! After all, I'm just... an idiot... in a blue box! With a screwdriver... passing through!"
He raised the wrist with the device fused around it near to his mouth, and spoke into it.
"Kill The Doctor."
Missy paused. Then she said: "What?"
"You heard me." The Doctor frowned. "The Cybermen know I'm in here."
Suddenly, an enormous explosion rocked the landscape, obliterating what was left of the church and rocking the willow tree, causing it to groan as it fell over, landing in the lake with a mighty splash. The Doctor and Missy were knocked to the ground, the female Time Lord barely avoiding hitting her head on the gravestone. And then the Earth opened below their feet. At least, that's what it looked - and felt - like. A black pit of nothingness in the ground, between The Doctor and The Master. Considering the distance between them was only five meters at best, the chasm posed an equal danger to both, particularly when it was growing ever-larger by the second, and was sucking everything in. Missy screamed as she held onto the tombstone behind her, her legs dangling in the space, pulled by an unseen gravity which was already dragging in loose leaves and branches from all over the graveyard. The Doctor hung on tight to his own side's gravestone, posed with the same issue. As stray leaves from the willow tree hit him in the face, he spat them away and tried valiantly to use the gravestone as a support to climb up. Missy looked over longingly toward The Doctor, but also with trepidation.
"Grab my hand, sir!" A familiar voice called over the tombstone toward The Doctor. He looked up to see Dr. Chang, with his hand at the ready. The Doctor allowed himself one last glance at his female-turned arch-enemy, before clambering out of the hole with his helping hand. Missy cursed at her rejecting 'lover', before the tombstone she was clutching gave way to the growing black vortex, and she fell screaming into it, tombstone and all.
Doctor Chang held onto The Doctor's arm as the world around them continued to shatter as it was rocked by explosions, falling apart bit-by-bit. As soon as The Doctor was safely away from the vortex, Doctor Chang pressed something on his wrist, and the world instantly faded into a personification of a black-and-green grid. The grid's green lines hummed and pulsed erratically. Occasionally, a Gallifreyan letter would float about on the grid before rendering itself into a different one. The letters carried no meaning, but it was a sign that The Doctor was still in the Nethersphere. With Doctor Chang, no less.
Joining his hands in front of his chest in an elaborate position, Dr Chang simply spoke: "You're not a Government Inspector."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, looking around himself and admiring his surroundings. It was calm at last. But was it the calm before the storm? "Of course I'm not. What kind of Government Inspector wrestles with a woman and destroys a perfectly good piece of technology?"
"We've had quite a few of those." Dr. Chang chuckled. "Would... Would you like me to repair your device?" He then asked, nodding his head toward The Doctor.
"My screwdriver...?" The Doctor asked, looking back at Dr. Chang, who nodded. He brought out his screwdriver from his jacket, careful not to smudge its charred exterior against his white collar. Handing it over to Dr. Chang, he took it with both hands. With it safely tucked between his palms, the screwdriver glowed a bright shade of blue for a few seconds, before flashing red. The Doctor was forced to look away to avoid damage to his eyesight, but upon looking back at the screwdriver, he was astonished to find that it rested in Dr Chang's palms, completely repaired. Dr. Chang handed it back to The Doctor, with a slight bow.
"Thank you." The Doctor said simply as he put it away once more. "But what happens now?"
"I can teleport you back to where you came from, just a few seconds before you were teleported here. As you may know, Missy used the teleporter function of her disintegrating device to bring you both here. Because of that, your body and mind are still intact. It seems both of us have experienced the opposite sides of what that device is capable of." Dr. Chang chuckled weakly.
"And what about you?" The Doctor asked.
"Ah. Alas, I cannot come. The Nethersphere requires an Artificial Intelligence to hold it together. Simply put, if I were to try to leave, it would fall apart before I fully materialize. Unless I can assign someone else as the Artificial Intelligence as I did for Sebastian... rest his soul." Dr Chang explained further, with a frown at the end as he remembered what happened to Sebastian, despite trying to send him back home.
The Doctor nodded slowly in understanding. "So it was you that also re-coded the Cybermen."
"Yes. All of those who chose not to delete their emotions retained their free will. An understandable course of action after what Missy did to me, I'm sure you'll agree."
"And I'm hoping what I'm thinking will happen... will actually happen once I return." The Doctor said. He took a deep breath. "Right! Then send the foolish traveler back to Earth!"
"With great pleasure. It was good knowing you, Doctor, even if we did get off on the wrong foot."
"You too."
And with that, The Doctor was once more violently thrown about. But this time, rather than being sent into a bottomless pit, he crash-landed in the group of self-aware Cybermen that had surrounded him, Clara and Missy earlier. They caught him, stumbling as they did so - but a catch nonetheless. It wasn't a pretty awakening for The Doctor either. All around him, in the mausoleum, the Cybermen who'd chosen to delete their emotions were all screaming as they clutched their helmets, some collapsing. Having just shot the Nethersphere which served as the hub for the Cyber Network, they struggled as the Nethersphere's emergency data download activated. Explosions were rocking the interior of St Paul's, threatening to blow the whole structure apart. If everything had gone to plan, Clara had already moved the Tardis - this meant all the Doctor had to do was get out of the building. But that was a task easier said than done. Especially when it felt like the Earth was falling apart around him.
"Come on!" The Doctor stood up with renewed vigor, not bothering to brush himself off. The self-aware Cybermen all dashed alongside him toward the exit of St Paul's, barging past the screaming Cybermen. What was left of the Nethersphere suspended in the centre of the mausoleum began to vibrate horrifically, setting off several alarm bells in The Doctor's head. As he rounded the corner to the exit, he paused, urging his followers on. They all ran past him, with the exception of the female soldier who saluted him first. He nodded, and she went out. He followed.
They barely made it before a massive shockwave blew them out of St Paul's.