When you approach potential customers, do you believe in your heart of hearts that you are offering them the best possible option and that they could not do better anywhere else? [...] None of us can be convincing if we don't believe. Look seriously at your own offer, be it a pay award to the union, a marriage proposal, or your own product: Are you overflowing with confident enthusiasm? You ought to be. [...] If you aren't, it might be well worth working on it until it improves to the point where you buy it hook, line, and sinker, and can offer it with confidence. [...] If [you will] buy it, [you] can sell it.

-The Art and Science of Business Persuasion: Mastering the Power of Getting What You Want, Geoff Burch (1994).

The rain — which had been threatening to fall from the dark, emerald green clouds all day — had released its rage unto the Doctor and Gilly as they fled from the settlement initially. But now, hours later, it had finally begun to slacken. All the albino could do was try to keep up with the Time Lord, as she thought back to what had happened sometime prior over the dead body of Jall, Dela's first born. How only the eyeballs themselves had been removed while everything else was left intact: the bones of the obit, the optic nerves, the muscles… Not to mention that not even a scratch, a bruise, a cut, or any cauterization was left behind. Even if acid had been used like the Doctor had hypothesized, there were no burns and once acid started to dissolve biological matter, it would be extremely difficult to stop it and practically impossible if you left no evidence from the altercation. Especially since the girl was alive during the whole process. Something else had killed Jall, and the only clue was that she smelled faintly of smoke.

What had really shaken Gilly — because she was no stranger to horrors such as Jall's empty sockets — was the brief conversation held between the Doctor and Dela, something that may have meant to be private but she had been witness to anyway. Dela, pleading for him to come back, her eyes wet from the sight of her daughter.

"I will," the Doctor promised her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "And I will found out who did this to Jall."

"And punish them for it?"

And then his eyes, oh, his eyes. Burning with a piercing intensity that made Gilly quake in her ballet flats. Flashing with a fire that promised brimstone and hell on Earth… hell on the remains of Acropolis. There would be no prisoners, no mercy, no second chances, as he whispered in a voice that seemed to echo with a dark certainty, "Oh, yes."

And now, Gilly Hopkins wondered, not for the first time, just who she was traveling with and if it was wise to continue doing so. At the moment, she had little choice but after? Well, after this, assuming they survived, she still had the choice to leave, she was sure. He made his point, she believed he was a time traveling alien. But this Doctor… There appeared to be more sides to him that she needed to take into consideration.

Something for a later time, she decided as she almost fell into a sewer. The two of them were headed to the white building that Gilly had suggested earlier before the Doctor had been assaulted by Alsa. He still hadn't told her what had made him so angry at the meeting, and she hadn't pried. The sheer noise of the storm and the water runoff was enough to discourage any conversation, even without the Doctor's aura of inapproachability brought into the equation. Too bad that they wouldn't be getting anywhere near the Fortress itself until early morning.

Gilly couldn't wait for this adventure to be over with, as she couldn't help but feel as if the two of them had overstayed their welcome. A feeling that only increased over time. But if the Doctor was to be believed, they needed to shut down the weapon first and quickly.

The Doctor led her to what had once been a plaza. They climbed their way over a fractured hill of ceramic tiles, separated by tenacious creeping charlie or, possibly, some type of moss. The tiles were the kind of off-white that almost seemed to glow in the night despite the lack of a moon. Towards the middle of the plaza was the remains of a fountain: collapsed and overgrown with an alien type of giant lily the size of her head. But none of that was what had caught either her or the Doctor's attention, rather, it was the glass man that stood about eighteen meters away.

It couldn't be real, Gilly decided. The glass man was only a little bigger than she was and completely featureless. As the two of them approached it, it didn't move, making the albino wonder if it was merely a statue. However, as she scrutinized it more closely, Gilly realized that this was probably the second type of ghost that the Doctor had mentioned. The idea made her insides turn cold.

The glass man finally turned to look at the duo and took a jerky step back, as if startled. Its face was nearly completely smooth, with small bumps and cervices instead of a nose or mouth. It did not have eyes. When they took another step closer, it raised a six fingered hand straight out in a position that a police man might do when directing traffic, a position that meant 'stop'. Gilly was close enough to notice what looked like a golden dot set into its hand, its diameter roughly around five centimeters across.

"We don't mean you any harm," the Doctor reassured it, giving a smile. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Glenda Hopkins."

It ran away. A comical sight to behold, since the only parts of its body moving was its legs while the arms remained straight by its sides. It was soon out of sight.

"Nice going," Gilly informed him dryly. "You scared it off."

He sputtered, "I did nothing of the sort; I was being friendly!"

"I'm just going to tell you right now, so we can get this out of the way and prevent anymore scares: your smile is creepy."

"Is not!"

"Yes, it is. Alsa and Gar told me so and showed me the hologram of you that they took. Your generic smiles are hella creepy."

"Well, that's just rude," the Doctor huffed, making Gilly laugh.

"That's ironic coming from you —"

"— Oh, shut up, would you?" The words contained no bite, but rather a tinge of humor. He ran a hand through his dripping hair. He sighed, "Let's keep going."

By the time that they had made it to the white building, the rain had finally slackened and the Doctor's hair had finally admitted defeat by releasing its gravity-defying style, going flat and sticking to his scalp. Gilly wasn't fairing much better. Her hair — which when dry had been reminiscent of countless spider threads — now looked like a white octopus had taken residence upon her head, only with around fifteen or so thin and ropey tentacles. They took shelter under a twenty-story sign with glass tubes declaring, AIRCAR FACTORY. Gilly was unimpressed with their distinct bluntness when naming said factory.

The glass tubes, however, reminded her of home. She remembered her grandmother saying that at one point only Tokyo, Japan had held the moniker 'Neon City', but the albino had always found that hard to believe. All of the major cities were Neon Cities. That's why whenever someone was going to the capitol of their state, providence, or country, they referred to it as 'going Neon', only specifying if they weren't going to the nearest capitol but another one somewhere else. The most famous Neon City was Dubai along with the tallest skyscraper ever created, even taller than the previous record breaker. A building so tall, it was deemed to be a starscraper.

Gilly shook herself out of her reverie, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. The Doctor was acting as if he was a tour guide, but the albino didn't mind very much. A lot of what he had to say was pretty interesting as long as she managed to intellectually keep up with him… A task that was easier to say than do as they made their way along the conveyer belts. They didn't dare use the floor which was covered with pools of questionable substances. Most were identified by the Doctor as paints and glues, but the other liquids remained mysterious and possibly hazardous. The pools added unexpected splashes of color to the otherwise sterile white and chrome environment with the occasional frozen robot worker getting a surprise paintjob.

The Time Lord had taken to wearing his 'brainy specs,' as he had called them, and examined everything with great interest, pointing out things here and there before spouting more facts than Gilly could ever hope to remember. He tapped, prodded, and very nearly danced around the factory, his companion following at a sedate pace behind him. "Oh, take a look at this," he would coo. "This is a sonic screwdriver but on a massive scale! Looks just like a car wash, don't it? I bet every aircar was custom made to order. In a city of 200 million, I would also bet no two cars were alike. And with this —"

Suddenly, the Doctor did a complete one-eighty and tackled Gilly, making them fall behind a stack of engine blocks. A blue beam whizzed overhead and shattered a window. "Whoops, sorry," he apologized sheepishly to the disgruntled albino. "It snuck up on me…"

"Again? Gee, Doctor, once is an accident but twice is the beginning of a pattern…"

"That's not how the saying goes."

"Bite me."

"Oh, I'll pass on that right now… Rain check?"

"That was not an invitation and you know it," Gilly snapped. "Don't you even think about ever cashing it in, you perverted alien!" The Doctor was laughing hysterically at this point. "I will not be held accountable for my actions if you do, so help me, God. Don't come crying to me when you get what's coming to you… I'll just slap you another one."

"Message received loud and clear," he cackled, grinning at her cheekily.

"Oh, it better," she grumbled testily, leveling him a glower. "I'm giving you thirty seconds to come up with a plan to get around the death lasers before I decide to use you as a meat shield."

"Only need ten," he boasted, creeping back towards the edge of the engine block that covered them.

Gilly huffed. "Show off," she scolded without much sting to her words.

Instead of denying her claim, the Doctor replied instead, "Show off I may be, but I definitely know a thing or two about particle transduction. See, the factory is made from diamond-reinforced type five space concrete — have no clue what the Fortress made of, sorry — and that means there's one, big, whopping problem." He paused and gave her a significant look, his eyebrows raised.

The ex-mortician rolled her eyes but played along. "What's the problem, Doctor?"

"The problem with diamond-reinforced type five space concrete…" The Doctor began as he lifted his sonic and pointed it at ceiling. He pressed a button and it let out a strained warble for several seconds. A crack began to appear before spreading towards the outer wall, right towards the Fortress and stopped once it reached its destination. A chunk of rubble — more like a pebble, really — fell and bounced against the Fortress as it tumbled down the side. The turret, which had been previous aimed at the Doctor and Gilly's direction, now focused on the pebble and shot at it. The energy beam both vaporized the pebble and hit the crack in the ceiling, making the roof collapse on top of the turret, snapping it clean off the Fortress and crushing it to smithereens. The Doctor finished his sentence with a smug smile, "…is that it's incredibly easy to resonate."

His companion blinked, impressed. "Wow."

"'Wow'?" The Doctor repeated, pretending disgust. "Is that all you can say?"

"Oh, Doctor, I'm so in awe of your skill, all words simply fail me," Gilly simpered, fluttering her eyelashes and clasping her hands in front of her chin mockingly.

He sniffed haughtily, lips twitching as a grin fought to take over. "Thought so." The two of them got out from behind their hiding place and sauntered over to the Fortress. The Doctor studied the structure, having no need to get out his glasses as he was already wearing them. Testing, he rapped his knuckles against the side of it before feeling along the wall with his fingers, looking for a seam. The moment her found one, he pulled back a panel so thick that he needed to use both hands. With Gilly assisting, they were able to pull it most of the way back, something that the Doctor would have not been able to do alone. By himself, he only would've made an opening just big enough for him to squeeze his lanky form through, but with Gilly, they opened it wide enough where he could slide past comfortably.

They barely spared each other a glance before entering the Fortress. It was pitch black, no light except from what little was emitted from the open panel behind them. "Can't see a thing," Gilly remarked. "You wouldn't happen to have a flashlight on you, would you? Or maybe you're secretly bioluminescent?"

"Ha, ha, ha," the Doctor laughed sarcastically. "Very funny, Glenda —"

"— It's still Gilly —"

"— But unlike you, I don't need a torch," the Doctor sniffed. "Superior Time Lord physiology and all that."

"Yeah, well, goody for you. Still doesn't change the fact that I can't see a damn —"

"— Language! —"

"— Thing! So, either bring out that over glorified laser pointer of yours that you call a screwdriver or give me your hand." She felt his hand slip into hers, surprising her slightly at the sudden action. "Oh."

"I wanna hold your hand," the Doctor warbled teasingly, singing some unknown tune that Gilly couldn't recognize.

"Er, what?"

He let out a pained sigh. "Don't they teach you anything? That was a classic Earth song… Humans. You'd forget what you had for lunch if someone didn't remind you."

"Hey!" Gilly protested.

"Well, what did you have for lunch?"

Silence.

"Seriously?" The Doctor asked, surprised. "It was s'posed to be a joke."

"Oh, hush," the albino grumbled. "This is actually, really mortifying for me right now… I had a busy afternoon, you know, almost dying and all that."

"That's not funny, Glenda," the Time Lord scolded.

"It is in my line of profession. You develop a morbid and warped sense of humor after a while."

The Doctor sounded like he was about to say something but changed his mind, instead saying, "We'll have to be careful here. We'll start running into traps pretty soon. Stay close and don't let go of my hand."

"Wouldn't even dream of it. I'd run into a wall otherwise."

"…I'm being serious, Glenda."

"…So am I."

They had been traveling in silence for some time, before the Doctor suddenly stopped, tense. "Stay back!" He hissed. "Stay exactly where you are, or we'll both be killed!" It went without saying that Gilly froze quicker than any child playing a game of 'Red Light, Green Light' would have. He reached for something behind her and to the left.

Gilly nearly jumped out of her skin when Alsa's annoyed voice came unexpectedly from that same direction, complaining, "I was being careful."

The Doctor, who had filched Alsa's torch from her bag and turned it on, scolded her, "Not nearly careful enough. Think of this place as a giant, unexploded bomb. The slightest wrong move and we're all dead. Period."

The teen scoffed, "I got past the defenses."

Her comment made the Doctor laugh more than just a little disdainfully. "There are hundreds of thousands of defense, and they don't just stop at the outer wall. The majority of them are on standby. It was pure luck that you haven't tripped any, stumbling around here like you've been doing for the past nine minutes and twenty-four seconds."

"What's standby?"

"You know, a telly that's on but not really on… Ah, I see the problem, you don't watch enough television! You should, five hours a day, minimum, and sit really close to the screen…"

Gilly burst out laughing. "Some doctor you are! That's the quickest way to scramble your brain. Bet you watched far too much as a kid."

The Time Lord pouted in the albino's direction. "Not nearly enough," he declared before turning back to Alsa. "Essentially, the Fortress is asleep. It'll wake up if you disturb it."

The stocky girl pulled a face. "How do you disturb a building? It's just, well, a building, innit?"

The Doctor shook his head, thought about it, and then nodded before pulling a face of his own, shrugging helplessly.

"Oh, you are hopeless with children, Doctor," the ex-mortician groaned. "Look, there are a bunch of sensors that detect if there are intruders. It sends information to a computer, basically a machine brain, which then tells the weapons to kill the intruders."

"Right, yes, what Glenda—"

"— Gilly! —"

"— Said. You've got just as much of a chance setting everything off if you go back…" He sighed. "You'll have to stick with us. Touch nothing. And don't step where I haven't. Also, if you happen to see a rock—"

"— Or a brick —" Gilly helpfully added with a smirk.

The Doctor sent his companion a warning look. "— Try not to hit me over the head with it, if you can manage that much."

"Whatever," came the flippant reply. It was about as good as they were going to get.

The Doctor gave Gilly the torch to hold while he brought out the sonic screwdriver. The device's tip lit up with a blue light and trilled, causing a hatch along a wall to open. He smiled reassuringly at the two of them before addressing Alsa, "As long as you're the only distraction, we'll be fine. Probably. Most Likely. Hopefully. Just as long as nobody does anything stupid."

There was a beat of silence.

"…You can let go of my hand now, Doctor, we've got a flashlight."

"Right, right," the Doctor coughed awkwardly. "Forgot."

"We're all doomed," Alsa deadpanned.

Gilly had thought that she had been going insane when she heard the voices until Alsa mentioned it. It appeared the Doctor was the only one who hadn't. Of course, he didn't believe them until the glass men — the Eyeless — deemed it appropriate to reveal themselves emerging eerily from the shadows — right along with giving the cold order to not move.

The Doctor somehow seemed to be oblivious to the niggling instinct that screamed 'danger!' at the sight of the glass men or, perhaps, didn't possess one. He looked as if he couldn't possibly be more thrilled at their appearance. "Hello there," he greeted them pleasantly. "I'm the Doctor, met you earlier. You ran off."

You were an unknown, it said. The glass man's voice seeming to reverberate inside Gilly's head. Both of you. We were alone and outnumbered. Gilly found it strange that used a plural pronoun instead of a singular one. A hive mind, perhaps? We could tell that you were not like the others, so we regrouped. We are still deciding if you are a threat or not. If we find you to be one, you will be eliminated.

The Doctor gave no reaction whatsoever.

"You really can't hear it speak, can you?" Alsa asked, sounding delighted by this. Gilly eyed the preteen warily.

"I can, though," she reminded the stocky girl, who leveled her with a scowl.

"It doesn't have a mouth," the Doctor mused, stepping closer and, once again, bring out his, beginning to be iconic, glasses. He peered at one of the Eyeless at every angle. The Time Lord's hands twitched, and Gilly gained the distinct impression that he was barely restraining himself from poking the creature. "Well, look at you," the Doctor beamed, genuinely delighted.

"I have to admit, I've never see anything like you before, and believe me, that's quite the accomplishment, being something brand new. Not to mention, I haven't the foggiest of what you could be. No joints, no muscles, no seams, no capillary tubes… At first I thought you might be using nanotechnology, but you're not, are you? You are not a robot. Silicon-based lifeform? No, hold on, hold on, carbon-based lifeform but instead of like me, Glenda, or Alsa, the carbon in your body takes the form of diamonds? Is that it? Are you a diamond geezer? You look completely solid, but you can move, animated glass. That is really remarkable, completely brilliant. Are you going to tell me how it's done, or is that a secret?"

Gilly could only stare. You would think that the Doctor was trying to play 'Twenty Questions' with all the asking he was doing, but somehow, the Time Lord still seemed to reach an answer.

That is irrelevant. Why can we not access your mind, Doctor? Answer the question.

Silence. The Doctor continued to gleefully admire the glass man in front of him.

"I don't think he can," Alsa told the Eyeless.

Explain yourself. Why can't he? Explain. Explain. Explain!

"I don't know why," Alsa responded petulantly. "I'm just telling you. Ask her, not me."

Why?

"I don't know why," Gilly spat out irritably. "He's an alien, I don't know anything about his species other than they can see in the dark."

"So they are telepathic, a race of glass telepaths called the Eyeless. I mean, cor, how brilliant is that?" The Doctor gushed, looked positively overjoyed. "I can't hear it. Can it hear me?"

The entire surface of our bodies can register even the smallest vibrations in the air. We are far more sensitive to sound, we have discovered, than any of you are.

Alsa relayed this to the Doctor, having elected herself the spokesperson of the Eyeless. A gleam shone in the Time Lord's eyes as an idea came to him, the twinkle seemed to say 'challenge accepted'. With a mischievous grin, he turned back to the glass man in front of him. He opened and closed his mouth for a few seconds, made hand gestures, pretending to speak but with no audible words coming out.

Is he stupid?

"No," Alsa and Gilly said at the same time.

The teen continued, "I think he's dead clever and just pretending."

"I am," the Doctor agreed solemnly. "Problem is, even as clever as I am, I still can't figure out why you call yourself the 'Eyeless'."

"Here's a hint: they have no eyes," Gilly said dryly.

"Well, yes, I can see that," the Doctor groaned, giving his companion a withering look. "But why didn't they pick their noses?" Alsa started giggling, but Gilly didn't get what was so funny. The Doctor transferred his exasperated expression to the younger girl. "Blimey, between the two of you, a bloke can never catch a break. I'm just saying that they don't have noses, either, why not the Noseless, eh? Or the Mouthless? Hairless? Earless? Heartless?"

"Well, why not?" Gilly posed, crossing her arms. "They could call themselves Slendermen."

Now the Doctor looked pained. "You don't know the Beatles, but you know 'Slenderman'?!"

"Hey," the albino protested, crossing her arms defensively. "Anyone who's been born within the past twenty years back at home has seen the horror movie series, 'Creepy Pasta'. I don't think I know anyone who was old enough to have been alive to witness the 'Buttons' or whoever they were."

"The Beatles, they're called the Beatles," the Doctor choked out, sounding wounded.

"Is there a point to this?" Alsa asked, sounding bored and lost.

"This isn't over, Glenda," the Doctor swore. "You will be a crazed Beatles fan when I'm through with you."

"Best of luck to you," she told him mildly.

The Doctor began to sputter something indignantly about how lightly she was taking such an important matter before Alsa snapped at him impatiently. Grumbling, the Doctor went back to his previous topic before he got sidetracked, "Groups are usually named after where they come from, or what they do, or what they believe in, or what they want to be. What sort of culture names themselves after what they aren't?"

"A counterculture," Gilly answered promptly.

"Oh, don't you start," the Doctor bit out. "Trying to make a point here. Look, why would they name themselves after something they don't have? Something that's not theirs?"

The question hung over them like a wet blanket.

"What are they?" The Doctor asked more directly.

"It's hard to explain," Gilly told him after a moment. "I'm mostly just seeing images. There are these white ships, all whole armada, except not for war. It's a fleet of ships, thousands of them, with one large mothership in the middle… There are so many glass men, they look just like prisms, glowing all these rainbow rays… They travel across the galaxy in search of technology. Because they can read minds, they usually can come to an agreement with the original owner but…" The albino's voice failed as her eyes widened in horror from the images being sent into her mind.

Alsa smiled a shark's grin. "…If not, they just take what they want anyway, just like me."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Are they now?"

"They've just promised to change things here."

"Have they, indeed?"

"They say that I shouldn't trust you, either of you, because they don't trust you."

The Doctor snorted. "That's because they're used to reading minds. They've never need to earn trust before, just taken it. Scavengers, thieves, thugs, that's what they are, on a cosmic scale."

"They're demanding to know why they can't read your mind," Gilly groaned, a headache starting to form from the constant, intrusive presence.

The Doctor jabbed a thumb as his chest. "I'm a Time Lord. We come with top-of-the-line psychic defenses as standard. I imagine a race as well traveled as the Eyeless have heard all about them."

"No, they've never heard of them before now," Alsa told the Doctor, making him deflate.

"Oh… Really? Is that so?"

Is his TARDIS a time machine? One of them asked and Gilly's blood ran cold. Thankfully, her mind went blank.

"That's a stupid question," Alsa scoffed before wincing when the Eyeless got more aggressive in demanded that the question be asked. "Okay, okay, fine. They want to know if your TARDIS can travel through time."

The Doctor's genuine, pleasant smile suddenly became the fixed and creepy one. "Er, what? No, that's a ridiculous idea."

"They would very much want a time machine," Alsa told him.

"More like are demanding it," Gilly grumbled.

"And you said that you're a Time Lord and you told Dela that TARDIS stands for Time And Relative —"

The Doctor was quick to interrupt as Gilly tried to focus on nothing in particular. "Oh, right! Yes, I can see why there's all this confusion. No, it's thyme, with an H-Y. Like the herb. I'm a Thyme Lord." It was all Gilly could do to not groan or cringe from the terrible, terrible lie. Instead, she focused on everything she knew about thyme and everything relevant to herbs. "As a, er, Thyme Lord, I know that it's good with a roast chicken and in biscuits. You wouldn't think so, but try it, just a couple of tablespoons. Got loads of recipes, all trade secrets, can't go into too much detail."

Gilly continued, forcing herself to believe the lie and become convinced of it holding some truth, "Of course it's not just thyme he cares about, other herbs matter too… unfortunately for me. See it wasn't just my illness that he as a doctor was trying to that care of — by the way, I wouldn't be surprised if my pills had thyme in them too… It's everywhere in that blue box — but also my own recipes that hold the three main herbs: thyme, rosemary, and basil. Like my famous vegetable stew, the trick is all in the herbs and spices. Of course, he doesn't like to hear that, because he's strictly herbs only. Doesn't want to admit that spices are just good and —"

Enough!

"Stop!"

Both Alsa and the Eyeless cried out at the same time, overwhelmed by all the gab and influx of useless facts about herbs and spices that filled Gilly's mind. Abruptly, the Eyeless's presence disappeared from Gilly's mind, avoiding it like it held a disease. Alsa shuddered, "We believe you. And the Eyeless wonders if she's this bad how much worse you are, Doctor."

"Oi!" The Doctor half-heartedly protested but was overall relieved that the lie had stuck.

"They… They actually want your recipes," Alsa sounded both disbelieving and sickened at the thought of wanting any part of the madness that both the Doctor and Gilly seemed to be a part of. "It's what they do, they take not just stuff but experiences, thoughts, emotions, fantasies… They keep them as souvenirs, badges."

"Proof of individual achievement in a hivemind," the Doctor muttered to himself.

Alsa continued, "If they are the first to do something, they get to keep a memento of it." Turning to the glass men, she pointed proudly at a ribbon on her jacket. "We're the same! I earn this when I beat Hlann in a fight, broke his nose and everything." The glass men that had remained just on the edges of sight, came closer. The Doctor sucked in a breath at the sight of one particular one. That Eyeless was just too far from Gilly's visual range to see what had garnered that reaction. However, it wasn't left up to her imagination for long.

"This one Eyeless does indeed have eyes," the Doctor noted hoarsely, before his voice hardened, the whole demeanor shifting to offensive. "You know, it strikes me as strange why you lot would be here. You have galactic travel and yet this civilization has been reduced to the pre-industrial stages. They are like mere children compared to you. Well, Alsa has an excuse, she's barely even thirteen."

"Hey!" Alsa snarled, instinctively taking a step closer to the Eyeless.

The Doctor caught the movement, his eyes narrowed onto the stocky girl. "You seem pretty chummy with them, Alsa."

"I can hear their thoughts, and they can hear mine," she answered stiffly as the Doctor regarded her with an intense and almost piercing gaze.

"Birds of a feather, eh? Glenda and I are a bit like that," the Doctor said casually, turning to look at his companion, his face out of view of the Eyeless. He raised his eyebrows significantly, catching Gilly's attention, he held her gaze.

"I have no idea what that means," Alsa stated flatly.

The Doctor made what looked like a dismissive motion, flapping his hand in what appeared to be a vague and random direction. Gilly understood. She blinked slowly one time. The Doctor turned away to face Alsa and the glass men once more, the whole exchange between himself and the albino taking less than a second. "This one with the eyes, he killed Jall. Do you realize that Alsa?"

"Sure, he's wearing her eyes."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"Better her than me," Alsa stated callously.

The Doctor stared at her sharply. "And what makes you think that's the choice?"

Alsa's answer was a bitter one. "I don't come from a planet with choices."

"We'll see about that," the Doctor mused, his expression impassive. He turned to face the Eyeless with Jall's eyes just as Gilly made to slip away.

"She's trying to escape!" Alsa shouted and the Doctor's eyes narrowed on her.

Perceptive one, he thought to himself. The Eyeless with the eyes raised its right hand, held it straight out so that it faced Gilly, palm flat. There was a golden disk imbedded in the center of the palm and it shone bright like the sun. Thoughtlessly, the Doctor jumped in the way just before the light pulsed. Gilly cried out in alarm…

The light died down. Nothing had happened.

The Doctor stood there unaffected, idly flipping the sonic in his hand that he just took out of his pocket. His voice was as cold and hard as ice, "A weapon which literally burns out the neurons, smoke pours out of the nose and mouth… Doesn't work on me just like your telepathy doesn't work on me." All of the Eyeless took a step back except the one with Jall's eyes. "Forget about Glenda, she's nothing compared to me. I'm the threat, so you better start treating me like it."

This time when Glenda slipped out like she had been directed to earlier, no one tried to stop her.

"Now, you and I…" The Doctor started lowly, ancient eyes staring down the dead green ones of the Eyeless. "We have a score to settle. You killed Jall and I made a promise about Jall… I will honor it." He stared the Eyeless down a bit longer, as if willing it to take to say something to him, but after a moment, he took a step back. "Last chance, Alsa. Pick which side you're on."

She laughed at him. "You make it sound like we're playing a game."

The Doctor broke eye contact from the Eyeless to look Alsa directly in the eyes. He saw nothing but contempt there. So be it, he thought to himself, passing judgement.

"Alsa?"

"Yes, Doctor?" She said, sneering.

"Playtime's over."

A/N: So, here we are. Here's where we start heading towards the climax of the story. I believe we'll only have two more chapters for this arc at the very most. So be prepared. The next chapter will probably be about the same length as this one, maybe a little longer, I don't know.

This chapter is beta-less, and I may have lost contact with the beta for this story... All spelling errors are my fault.

A few things to address: I sent Gilly outside for a reason, she WOULD NOT survive if she followed the Doctor otherwise. There would be more ways with her ending up dead than you have fingers on your hands, no matter if you have more than five fingers per hand or not.

Alsa is not necessarily evil, just a very angry and very bitter teenager... with some sociopathic tendencies...

The Eyeless, just let me be clear, did not create the Fortress. We never actually meet the creator of the Fortress. It's assumed that they're dead.

As for Gilly herself, why she ran... Well, it's simple, the Doctor told her to and she trusted him to have a plan. She might've disobeyed him at first out of concern for his being, but when she saw that the weapon of the Eyeless remain ineffective against the Doctor... She decided that he could probably handle it.

Also, can I just say that the Doctor is the world's biggest Gary Stu? Seriously, OP to the max.

I do have a question for all of you: If you had one song to describe this story, what would it be? I'm thinking of doing a music video for this...

And, of course, the best way to answer a question such as this would be to leave a review.