Time Lord eyes are different from human ones. They are able to move and shift independently. Apparently, Time Lords use them to control computers. Somehow.

Thank you Lord Leo Lionheart for following and favoriting.

Perhaps Marion had been a bit too hasty earlier. The mysterious force had dropped her off neatly on her feet and she hadn't slammed into the wall or fallen weird or anything of that nature. Marion was thankful for that. It was even nice enough to place her in the console room on the opposite side that the Doctor was.

Another thing was that it was very, very easy to figure out which Doctor she was with and who their companion was. She didn't have to do a console room based deduction this time.

She had landed in the middle of an argument between the Doctor and Clara.

"Ms. Oddwald or was it Oddbod? Something like that. Who cares?"

"Me!" Clara said in outrage. She was wearing a purple ski suit with fur around the collar and shaking a ski pole at the Doctor, "I'm one of the cool teachers that all the kids like right? Not one of the uncool teachers that they make fun of and give silly names. You must've misheard,"

"Hey," Marion said, letting them know that she was there, "Better something like Oddwald then them just calling you by your last name without a 'Ms'. If students collectively call a teacher by their last name, they'd probably murder them if given and eighht of a chance," Marion paused, "Maybe that's an American thing?"

"They can't call me Oddwald or Oddbod or Odd-Anything because there's nothing odd about me," Clara retorted, "Nothing at all,"

"That's the spirit. Don't let these things get to; you sticks and stones," The Doctor turned away from the console and pointed at Clara.

"Observation: You humans have become a little too obsessed with your own image. Chemical-peels, liposuction, buttock-lift? Sounds like a Sontarian torture chamber. It's just packaging! What's inside is what counts. If you're not happy in your own skin, and I've had more skins than most people-,"

Clara crossed her arms. "The last you, the you that isn't you know, wasn't adverse to the odd bit of pretty packaging,"

The Doctor's eye twinged. Marion remembered reading this conversation. It never was quite clear where the comics took place, just sometime in season eight after the events of the Caretaker. Despite that, she knew that the way Clara constantly compared this version of the Doctor to his previous incarnation bothered the man and that showed in the way that he responded.

Marion made a mental note to snap a couple of photos of One and Three to flash in Clara's face during the events of Deep Breath.

"You mean, the me that wore a bowtie?" the Doctor asked incredulously, "The me that thought a fez; an item of apparel resembling an upturned plant-pot was cool? The me that used the world COOL?" The Doctor adjusted his lapel, "Still, not to worry. Sophistication and timeless sartorial elegance have been restored,"

Marion snorted, "What do you mean restored?"

"I'm not the one dressed like I came straight from the Old American West," the Doctor said with a wave of his hand.

Marion looked down at her (rumpled) blouse and prairie skirt. About the only part of her that didn't look like a mess was the waistcoat and that was because whatever fabric it was made of didn't seem to wrinkle easily.

"Yes, well, there's a perfectly good reason for that Doctor,"

"And what reason would that be?"

"I just came from the Old American West,"

"Tombstone?" the Doctor asked.

"Yup. Tombstone. Left more or less as soon as we got back on the TARDIS as you might recall. I've still got Holliday's wanted poster in my bag," She tapped the side of her bag. "Didn't have time to change and I doubt that I'm going to,"

"Anyway," said Clara, bringing things back to their initial discussion, "If there's anything odd about me, it rubbed off the two of you. Y'now, after last time, I could've just taken a few lessons at the artificial slope in-"

"Artificial-piffle. Why settle for fakery when I can take you to the frozen wastes of the Isen VI, home to the coldest, crispiest, snowiest snow in the universe,". The TARDIS began to make it's trademarked landing noise.

"Speaking of the planet," Marion said, "we're landing soon,"

The TARDIS let out one more "Wheeze" and then it stopped.

Clara kneeled down and began to buckle her ski boots into the skis.

"Okay, So we missed out on Antarctica in favor of the surface of the sun. I won't call this trip overcompensating if you don't…and shouldn't you two be getting ready. The most amazing thing is that you can ski. Thanks for offering to teach me,"

"Teach you?" the Doctor said in disbelief, "Do you know how cold it is out there? Marion and I are staying in the TARDIS. A mug of Borvil and melted marshmallows for me, a cup of hot chocolate with whipped cream for Marion. I might even solve something unsolvable while Marion might finish a painting or two while you're swooshing up and down the slopes. She might even paint the slopes that you're swooshing on"

"What?" Clara said in shock, "You said-"

"I said I'd help. You're the teacher Clara, I'm the Doctor,"

The Doctor retrieved a warm winter coat and hat from off a rack.

"What about you Marion?" Clara turned towards Marion clearly hoping that if the Doctor wouldn't own up to the promise he might've made then she might.

Unfortunately, for Clara, while Marion was talented at a good many things (art, physics, baking, not dying), winter sports weren't exactly in her skill set.

Marion put her hands up. "Don't look at me, Clara. I'm bad at skiing. There's a very specific way to slow down and if you mess up you speed up. No thank you. Nearly snapped my leg in half. No thanks, Sorry."

Marion then remembered something, "Uh, but you'll be fine though. Shouldn't be an issue,"

"Don't worry. We'll keep an eye out for ice-sharks," the Doctor said, adjusting a blue winter hat on the Doctor's head.

"Ice-sharks?"

"Of course. You always learn faster when your life depends on it," The Doctor moved to the TARDIS door. And prepare to open it. "Brace yourself, without proper protection, the winds of Isen VI can strip the flesh from your body and freeze the blood in your veins,"

'That seems overly dangerous. And overly dramatic,'

"Okay," Clara said trying to reassure herself, "I can do this. It's only snow. I've faced Daleks, gold-loving robot knights, a Skovox Blitz Class 48 on a miserable wet Monday morning..." she said something else under her breath, but all that Marion was able to catch was "cupboard...Danny...and bump,"

The Doctor opened the door to reveal, not a cold Nordic hellscape like what he had described, but instead a warm sunny tropical jungle. Instead of huge snowy hills, there were tall, green, and grassy ones. There were trees that looked alien, but like something that might appear on earth. A few colorful flowers lined the ground which was otherwise covered something that wasn't quite grass but wasn't quite moss. Gross? Mass? It looked like it'd feel soft under her feet, but Marion wasn't interested in finding out that she had a fun new allergy.

"Hah!" the Doctor said, "You travel to an ice-world and find yourself in a scorching hot tropical jungle. Don't you LOVE the unexpected,"

"Not when I'm dressed for a yeti hunting expedition!"

"You are overcompensating slightly," the Doctor agreed, "the weather's not that changeable. Not unless you're in Scotland,"

Clara began loosening her coat. "Are you sure that we're in the right place?"

"We are," said Marion, "Doesn't look like it I know, but it's definitely, Isen VI,"

The Doctor's sonic screwdriver buzzed as he scanned the air, "No doubt it. Spatial and temporal coordinates coordinate nicely. Curious, the last planetary survey of this system was only a few decades ago and Isen VI was still a giant snowball then. Question: What natural phenomena could transform a world so radically in such a short length of time?" The Doctor asked rhetorically.

"A really hot meteor?" Clara offered.

"Nothing," Marion said, "Nothing natural anyway. I mean, a meteor could most certainly turn a tropical jungle into a frozen wasteland yeah, happened to Earth at one point; caused an ice age," Speaking of that, there had to be some way that she could bullshit her way into saving Adric right? She hadn't met the boy yet but there had to be something. "Nothing natural can cause this kind of thing in only a few decades Clara. You'd need at least a few centuries and that's pushing it,,"

"Which means outside interference," the Doctor stuck his screwdriver back into his jacket pocket, "I hate outside interference,"

"That's interesting,"

"All you do is interfere,"

"Nonsense!" the Doctor retrieved something that looked like a magnifying glass but with green glass instead of something clear. "Things just seem to happen when I'm around. Marion and I are magnets for adventure,"

"Doctor, you seemed pretty well prepared for all this. Did you have any other reason for coming here apart from NOT teaching me how to ski?" Clara accused.

The Doctor started to go off deeper into the forest. Marion kept close to him.

"An ulterior motive?" the Doctor called back to Clara, "No! How could you think such a thing!"

"But…," Marion crossed her arms.

"There was a signal..."

"What kind of signal?"

"Very faint. Undetectable without a TARDIS. Not really sure what it was. Do you know Marion?" Marion scrunched her nose. The Doctor seeing that, kept talking, "It just piqued my curiosity. Maybe a warning, but…,"

"A warning? I remember warnings," Clara put her hands on her hips, "People use them to suggest that you don't do something...,"

The Doctor wasn't listening to Clara. Something must have caught his eye because he instead walked further into the jungle. Marion, after glancing quickly at Clara and seeing her talking to a monkey-like thing, followed after the Doctor.

"Marion come look at this. Isn't this interesting?" The Doctor held up a leaf and handed it to Marion.

"Yup," She examined the leaf. It looked like a normal everyday leaf, but with one main difference. Between the bottom two veins on the right side of the back of the leaf was the copyright sign followed by a double-lined dollar sign. The symbol's color looked like it had been scratched into the leaf, but the symbol was smooth both in looks (the monogram was smooth and crisp like it has been typed) and in texture (it didn't feel like someone had scratched it).

"This whole forest is man-made," Marion said finally. She knew that the Doctor was coming to that conclusion himself so her saying so wasn't a spoiler. "Had to be, otherwise it wouldn't make sense for it to even be here. This was an ice world a while ago after all,"

"Do you know why it's like this?"

"Yes. And it's kind of ridiculous. But also," Marion looked back the way they had come. "We need to grab Clara,"

"Do you mean that she wandered off?"

"What do you think?"

The two of them heard screaming in the distance.

"Was that?"

"Ye-,"

The Doctor had already sprinted off in the direction of Clara's scream.

"-s,"

Marion sprinted after the Doctor.

Despite his longer legs and head start, Marion was quickly able to catch up to the Doctor as they followed Clara's scream to a clearing. The trees were covered in vines and hanging from the vines were a bunch of odd-looking monkeys. They were small with white tails, plumes, and streaks on their bellies. They had blue faces fringed by a small border of ruddy brown fur. The rest of their bodies were dark grey.

They also had very, very sharp teeth.

The Doctor grabbed a hold of his coat and pulled out his screwdriver. Its green light glowed repeatedly and Marion could vaguely hear something, like the airy sound that's the only part of a dog whistle you can hear. Unlike Marion, the monkeys could hear the noise just fine and they didn't care for it. They fled screeching.

"A few sonic pulses beyond our hearing range to scare them off," the Doctor offered as an explanation, "Won't do them any permanent damage if you care about that sort of thing,"

"Somehow, I don't think that she does,"

"You can say that again," Clara used her ski pole to pull herself to her feet, "The little creeps tried to eat me!"

"Well, it is a jungle out here. A man-made one," the Doctor said.

Marion held out the leaf to Clara.

"Eh? A copyright notice and a dollar sign? I don't...are you saying someone made his place?"

"More like remade," the Doctor explained, "What you'd probably call a makeover. In fact, if you shaved one of your little pals back there, I suspect you'd find the same markings,"

"It's both fascinating and upsetting,"

"Yuck! And what does the dollar sign mean?"

"It means Clara, that some jackass with too much money and an inability to care about anything outside of his bubble just-," Marion threw up her hands, "casually terraformed a whole planet. There had to have been some native flora and fauna here before. Probably something cool that's never been seen or heard from before. And now it'll never be. And not to mention," Marion took a deep breath, "Not to mention that when you make big changes to a planet, you never know what else you could be dealing with. There are some things that some people have too much of. It's time-"

"And money Clara!" the Doctor shouted, "Obscene amounts of money. More money than sense, because you mess with natural evolution at your own peril. I HATE money,"

"That explains why you never have any," Clara mused, "Marion and I have to pay the bill most of the time when we get coffee,"

Before the Doctor could respond to that, the group heard a voice. It had that metallic, breathless sound found in robots or other programs that used speech based on sounds another person recorded.

"ATTENTION! THIS WORLD IS PRIVATE PROPERTY. YOU ARE TRESPASSING. YOU SPACECRAFT IS ALREADY IN OUR CUSTODY. SURRENDER AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED,"

The droid speaking was roughly the height of Marion's chest and the grey-green color of the tiles of a subway station wall. It had visible joints and a square of red just above the speaker grill of its "mouth". It had a long head with metal divots at the top and to the side that Marion supposed resembled the flat outline of ears. Where its eyes might've been, was a raised rectangular bit that said "ERIC" in black capital letters. It was holding a two-pronged staff. When none of them moved after the robot had ordered them to surrender, it did something and the staff crackled with blue electricity.

"RESIST AND SUFFER PUNITIVE MEASURES. WE ARE AUTHORIZED TO USE ALL NECESSARY FORCE."

"Oh?" the Doctor said, retrieving his sonic screwdriver, "you are, are you?"

The Doctor reprogrammed "ERIC" into taking the three of them to the large off-white airship that had trapped the TARDIS in a tractor beam. There was another robot on the ship. This one looked identical to "ERIC" except, the name written across his head was "CLARENCE". The Doctor dealt with him the same as he dealt with "ERIC". The ship was automated and began to take off.

"Doctor, are you going to bring this ship back down?"

The Doctor put his screwdriver back in his coat.

"I still want to find the source of that signal Clara. And if this whole planet is private property,"

"Then seeing where this ship wants to take us is the ideal way to find out,"

Marion snapped her fingers and did finger guns at her, "Got it in one Clara,"

There were speakers in the ceiling. Some kind of news broadcast was beginning to play. After a few moments of some kind of intro music (Marion was pretty sure that even though they just heard audio there were visuals somewhere) a woman's voice began speaking.

"This is Alice Xanada, live from the lush tropical jungles of Isen VI. That's right, I said Tropical Jungles,"

Marion couldn't exactly place the woman's accent. It sounded vaguely British the way that most of the folks that she had met in space spoke, but there was something else to it. She could hear it in the way the woman pronounced "T's" as if they all appeared in groups of two and the emphasis she put on some of the vowels.

"Kano Dollar, the richest human in the 25th century, has terraformed the former ice-giant to create a romantic paradise for him and his bride-to-be Princess Thanna of the Gothgolka Horde. I caught up with the intergalactic energy and media magnate as he prepares for what is bound to be the Wedding of the Millenium,"

There was a moment of silence, and then a male voice began to speak.

"Some people say you shouldn't mix business with pleasure. Idiots! Business is pleasure. Isen VI is the start of a new era of peace and prosperity. The advances in planetary engineering that we've pioneered make it possible to build worlds to any specification. Wars, energy shortages and overpopulation will become things of the past,"

The man's voice sounded oddly familiar to Marion, though she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Marion found that was odd, especially since this adventure had been from the comics (a purely visual medium) so it wasn't like she was recognizing an actor or something still.

'Where do I know that voice?' Marion pondered.

Marion was brought out of her thoughts by the sound of buzzing.

"Whatcha up to Doc?"

"How come you let Marion call you 'Doc'," Clara asked. She didn't sound annoyed by this; more amused than anything.

"Because Clara, Marion is Marion," The Doctor looked at something on his screwdriver, made a look of disbelief and then moved the screwdriver in such a way that it looked like he was no longer scanning, but was instead actively doing something. "Tell you what Clara. You travel around with me for a few hundred more years and you can call me whatever you want,"

Clara laughed.

"So Doctor," Marion asked with a grin, noticing the Doctor's expression as he looked at the reading "Having trouble getting into the Dollar Database?"

The Doctor let out a small laugh, "You'd think they'd have a bit more security than that. I've seen cellphones harder to break into. Also, the Databases belongs to a Professor Spector, not Dollar,"

"Ah. Well is Spector's encryption that shoddy or are you just a genius,"

"Both,"

"Of course. What are you doing right now? Still breaking into Spector's files?"

"It's been three minutes. Didn't you hear me? No. I'm just going through the woman's music. It's a long trip. We might as well have something to listen to. Oh, look! A classics, playlist,"

"Classical" turned out to mean "Music from the late 20th and early 21st century,". Which meant a bunch of music that sounded vaguely familiar to her both in name and tune.

Marion wasn't positive if it was because she was in a different dimension, she was roughly 450 years in her own future, she was billions of miles from home, or even if it was because none of the people spoke English and the TARDIS was giving her an exact translation of this music that was playing, but matter what the cause was, all of the music sounded ever so slightly off. Songs like "Tiny Lion Lad", "Solitary Miner" and "The Time Track".

That last one was from the "Scary Stone Moving Picture" apparently and it's what played as the ship finally landed. The ramp to the ship lowered. "ERIC" and "CLARENCE" more or less danced out of the ship singing while the two people who had come to meet the "prisoners" (a woman in a blue shirt with half her head shaved and a man dressed entirely in dark greyish green) looked on in bafflement.

"I do love a show-stopping entrance. Almost as much as I hate being taken prisoner. Next time you fancy a chat, Professor Spector, try asking nicely," the Doctor snarked.

"What? How do you know-?" The woman said in shock.

The Doctor, Clara, and Marion continued down the ramp.

"Your robots are hooked up to your mainframe, a wealth of information,"

"And apparently," Marion added, "ridiculously easy to reprogram,"

"Some not bad tunes in their memory banks though," Clara conceded.

And that was true. Professor Spector had surprisingly good taste in music.

They continued to walk until they were at the ship across from them. The Doctor began leaning over the computer and started looking for things. The woman in blue (Professor Spector) followed close behind them, likely to make sure they didn't tamper with anything that could cause too much damage.

"Right then, a basic terra-sphere control system," the Doctor said. Marion wasn't sure how he determined that from the screen but she tried to take note of what it said in case there came a time when she needed to recognize one, she'd be able to.

She couldn't make heads or tails of it, so she just hoped that when it came up, the Doctor would know about it.

"Basic?" Professor Spector said in outrage, "The technology is cutting edge!"

"Nonsense!" the Doctor retorted, "In the grand scheme of time and space, planetary engineering is old hat," He turned away from the screen. "An old friend of mine, well, enemy really, once tried to create an entirely new universe to rule maniacally or something like that. I lost interest early into his monologue. I put a few minus signs before his calculations while Marion distracted him. He ended up a wee bit smaller than what he planned. I've got it in my pocket,". The Doctor retrieved what Marion was partially sure was a tigers eye marble and held it up near his ear.

"An entire universe all to himself, no other life forms whatsoever. If you listen closely, you can hear him calling us all sorts of names," the Doctor said with a grin.

"Ignoring that," Marion, "Terraforming a whole planet and shifting its climate drastically? It's ethically dubious at best. I mean, are you aware of the fact you might've made something go extinct? You can't just mess up a whole ecosystem like that!"

"Don't listen to them, you made a whole new world," Clara said, patting Professor Spector on the shoulder, "How long does something like that take?"

"We launched the terraformer missiles three years ago breaking through the surface ice and penetrating deep underground," Marion thought about Jade and how she had seemed so excited to tell Marion, the Doctor, Ryan, and Graham about spiders. Marion would always stand by the belief that people were at their most attractive when they were passionately talking about things that they cared about. Professor Spector didn't have that same kind of joy in her voice. She sounded like she was giving some kind of rehearsed press statement. Whatever her degree was in, she doubted that she had dreamed of destroying a planet's whole biosphere for a rich weirdo's wedding destination. "Robo-drones mined resources from the surrounding environment and started to construct the towers using the missiles as a foundation. On completion, the towers generated a protective energy field around the planet, stimulating the beginning of a biosphere,"

SNORE

While the woman was talking, the Doctor had his eyes closed and his arms crossed and was sleeping.

Marion elbowed him lightly in the side. He snorted and woke back up. He glared at Marion for a moment, and then closed his eyes again. Professor Spector continued to talk.

"We then released nanotek swarms above and below the surface, modifying the atmosphere, temperature, topography, and ecology to our specifications making it habitable for life. Organisms with hyper-evolution genes were also released, populating the planet with new species designed to be harmless to any visiting sentients,"

"Harmless? A bunch of Skunkey's tried to-"

"Finished-" the Doctor cut Clara off as he snorted back awake, "About time," The Doctor clicked something and the three screens turned into views of the planet. One screen showed the jungle which looked fine. However, on another screen was a smoking volcano and on the other was a huge tidal wave.

"Temperatures escalating at both poles. Glaciers melting at quite a terrifying rate. Seismic activity off the scale on every continent,"

"What you've done is a global warming speedrun. Flooding, eruptions, you probably cost something here it's only possible habitat. Bravo!"

"You're heading towards a global cataclysm Profesor. I'd run away if I were you. Very fast,"

Marion glanced out the door in hopes of seeing outside. She was unable to do as a man walked furiously into the small ship or monitoring station or whatever it was and blocked the door as he did. He was a heavyset man with black hair that looked like it was slowly attempted to escape to the back of his head. He dressed in a white, brown, and gold military adjacent looking outfit. She wondered if those were wedding closed.

"My world! No one leaves without my permission," he yelled, "Some of the most powerful and influential beings in the galaxy are here and right now I need all that influence and power on my side,"

Judging by the voice that Marion still was unable to determine the familiarity of, and her memory this would have to be Dollar.

"I've indulged your so-called genius for too long, Professor. Stabilize Isen VI or I'll show you exactly how cutthroat a businessman I can be,"

"If I didn't know better, I'd think that your plan was to set this planet to burst for like, I don't know, for tax reasons or to commit insurance fraud or to get rid of a bunch of influential people for reasons. I mean seriously!" Marion grumbled under her breath.

The Doctor ignored the newcomer and continued to talk to Professor Spector. "The company you keep leaves much to be desired,"

"Funding is hard to come by,"

"So's integrity,"

It was obvious that the man was unused to being ignored.

'Who the hell are you! What are you doing here?"

"She's Marion, I'm Clara, and he's the Doctor,"

"Doctor who?"

The Twelfth Doctor had always sounded a little bit irritated 70% of the time. About 20% of the time, he sounded legitimately furious.

Kano Dollar shrunk back as he came face to face with the Doctor at 20%.

"Doctor who turns up in the nick of time to save the day, though sometimes wonders WHY HE BOTHERS. Doctor who's quite possibly your only chance of getting off this world alive. Doctor who advises you to do exactly as he says and stop attacking him with Dull, Borning, Pointless questions," The Doctor stopped pointing at the man and stood up straight and shaking. "And the Doctor who's just remembered that he knows Venusian Akido, so if anyone else asks another dull-"

The Doctor was cut out by the sound of the radio nearby turning down. There was a moment of static followed by loud rumbling in the background.

"Er, Hello?" A voice said. The voice sounded bubbly as if the person speaking was speaking underwater. "Dr. Scrofolus here, Team 12. Sorry to interrupt, but we're encountering what you might be tempted to call choppy waters,"

"Gimme that comm fish-face," another voice said. It could be heard, farther away from the mic.

"Fishface?!"

There was a bit of fumbling and then another voice began to speak.

"Control! Engine Malfunction! Controls refusing to respond! We can't get off the ground! Seismic activity is increasing! There's an earthquake starting right under our-" the call cut out.

"Where was that call coming from? Where was team twelve located?" the Doctor said quickly.

Professor Spector began to quickly type something on her computer as the Doctor, Clara, and Marion were nearly out the door.

"A thousand kilometers west of here and two-thousand kilometers south. But there's no way for anyone to get there!"

"That's what you think! Come on!"

The three of them plus the professor and "ERIC" ran to the TARDIS and the Doctor unlocked the door.

"It's bigger on this inside!" Spector said, looking around.

"Yes, yes, I've heard it before. Marion, if I put in the coordinates, do you think that you can make sure we get there? It's a bit of a short jump and you've always been better at making sure that those turn out right,"

"Uh…," Marion looked down at the controls, "I don't-,"

"Just pull the right levers when the TARDIS tells you to. We don't have time!"

"Okay!" Marion said, panicked. She had to remind herself that the Doctor just Sounded Like That and he wasn't angry at her. Although he did seem frustrated that he had to say anything.

The older the Doctor got, that he seemed to be more...not well, not annoyed with her, but off. It was clear that they had trouble knowing how to act around a version of her that hadn't done the things they did. She wondered if she'd feel the same way about him. Would she dread seeing the young yet old man with the fuzzy hair or the scruffy man in the oversized frock coat? She hadn't even met the latter of those yet.

It seemed almost cruel of the universe to trap two people together that could never be on the same page.

Actually, scratch the almost. The universe was a dick for doing it.

Marion was torn from her thoughts by the grinding noise of the TARDIS.

Marion moved her hands over the TARDIS's levers confused. She grabbed it and pulled it until it cooled down. She moved around the TARDIS console, her hands hovering, attempting to feel the heat that told her what she needed to press or flip. The Doctor moved around the TARDIS too, likely checking to make sure that she wasn't messing up since this was clearly her first time piloting the TARDIS and even if it was especially nice to her for some reason, that didn't mean that she wouldn't guess wrong. After a bit of this, she grabbed a final lever and pulled. The TARDIS made its telltale materialization noise.

The group could hear rumbling continue outside. Clara threw open the door to the TARDIS and stepped outside.

"If you like being living, breathing, and three-dimensional, in here! If you want to become pancake people, stay where you are," Clara moved away from the entrance and the two of them ran inside. One of them was human looking with a scruffy beard and an orange jumpsuit that said "12" on the breast pocket. The other one looked like if you crossed a giraffe with a manatee and put it underwater. He was dressed in a purple jumpsuit with gold parts near his waist and shoulders. His head was covered by a transparent glass dome filled with water. That had to be Dr. Scrofolus.

The two men ran inside and the Doctor shut the door behind them just as the rocks began to hurl towards the open door. They stared at the TARDIS console room in shock.

"What the-"

"By the oceans of Tantalus it's-,"

The Doctor cut Dr. Scrofolus off, "Bigger inside than out? Heard it! Stay out of our way and try not to scream too much. If you're scared, find a sofa to hide behind. There's one around here somewhere. It won't save you, but people seem to find it comforting,". With that said, the Doctor began pressing his screwdriver against something until it buzzed and the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

"Doctor do you-,"

"I'm following the signal from earlier Marion. Just sit tight,"

The exterior of the TARDIS began shaking as it was hit by rocks. The Doctor pulled a final level and it disappeared.

When the rumbling stopped, Professor Spector spoke. "Thank you! We'd never have reached them in time," She started to look around the TARDIS. "This ship is incredible, I mean, ramshackle and bizarre but-"

"Oi! Don't be rude to Honey. She's a great ship! The best one and I won't hear otherwise from anyone!" Marion patted the console as she spoke. "It's okay!" Marion said soothingly, "She didn't mean it. I mean, she did, but she doesn't know what she's talking about. You're an excellent ship Honey,"

The TARDIS hummed under her fingertips.

The TARDIS finally landed in a large rounded tunnel made of dark grey stone. It was incredibly hot likely due to the magma sluggishly flowing down the cavern walls and into small pools like bright orange super hot honey. Marion wasn't sure what it was made of. She couldn't think of any mineral she knew of that melted at a temperature low enough that being in a cavern with that much of it didn't make this cavern a bajillion degrees too hot for any of them to be safe here.

Maybe it was gallium or something. Maybe Sodium? Or Sulfur? Or Phosphorus? Those had relatively low melting points. Didn't they? But, it didn't smell like sulfur and wasn't bright enough to be phosphorus. Actually, maybe it was some other mineral completely. Marion wouldn't know and wouldn't know how to know.

This wasn't the first time that Marion had wished that her Sonic Pen was good for anything other than leaving glowy orange notes and auto transcription. Actually, come to think of it, she hadn't had a single moment where that last one was useful. Marion didn't know what "lesson" that pen was supposed to teach her, but the second she got to the point with the Adipose, she was going to steal herself a proper sonic pen. One that could unlock doors and scan shit.

Yes. Now that was a plan.

"Wait!" said Spector, taking in their surroundings, "Where are we? I thought you were taking us back to-"

This Doctor really had a thing for cutting people off, didn't he?

"The TARDIS detected a series of strangely structured caverns formed around the base of your tower,"

"And these caverns," Marion swung her arms around, "were where it was coming from. This is the source of your problem, and we're here to sort it all out!"

"Investigating," the Doctor said, scanning the tunnel, "It's one of my specialties,"

"The others are interfering and infuriating. He infuriates incredibly well," Clara said something else under her breath that sounded something like "Marion's good at it too,". She raised her voice back up and said, "'ERIC' stay with the TARDIS,"

"Why are you still carrying a ski-pole?" the Doctor asked her.

"To jab you with when you annoy me. I'm surprised that you're not pin-cushioned already,"

"Keep ahold of that 'pin' then Clara. You're going to need it later," Marion said.

They made it to a point where magma flowed in a sluggish river. There was a strip of walkable rock against the wall. They had to walk sideways around it and more or less hug the wall, but it wasn't too bad.

"So this signal?" Clara asked the two of them.

"Gallifreyan in origin,"

"But Time Lords are-,"

"Their legacy lives on. Millenia ago, they established a sort of early warning system. A series of satellite-beacons that would rove the galaxies, set to detect threats to universal harmony, disruptions in time and space, and other inexplicable phenomena. The technology's ancient now. And failing. The TARDIS detected a signal but the alert was unclear,"

"And, as the last of the Time Lords, you felt duty-bound to check it out. It could be a good alert though, yeah? Other than an 'Oh-My-God-We're-All-Going-To-Die-Alert'?"

"Clara you don't know how much I wish I could say that that's what's up," Marion said, "But it's not,"

"I'm detecting two power sources," the Doctor said as they got to a wider strip of land, "but the energy patterns are overlapping and interacting,"

The tunnel opened into a large cavern the size of a rocket silo. There was a huge ship partially backlit by magma.

It was a bit hotter in this part of the room. Marion unbuttoned her waistcoat so that it looked more like an open, sleeveless jacket. It didn't help a whole lot, but it was a lot better.

"Whoa!" said Orange Jumpsuit.

"I don't understand, this isn't part of the program!" Professor Spector said in disbelief.

"Sometimes, things don't go to plan. Your terraformer did more than just penetrate the planet. It activated that too!" Mario swung pointed at the ship.

"Impossible! We scanned extensively. Everything was clear,"

"Something that's gone to the bother of concealing itself miles underground just might employ sensor-shields," the Doctor said sarcastically.

"What is it? A ship?"

"Yes and before anyone touches anything! This is a ship. A Hyp- a dangerous ship. And it's what's been messing with the evolution of this planet and it's dangerous. Like, super dangerous. So don't-,"

Marion heard a hissing noise.

Dr. Scorfolus was spraying water on the side of the ship. "Doctor! There is some sort of markings here!"

Marion backed away from the ship slowly.

"GOD FU- Didn't I JUST say not to touch anything,"

"Uh-Oh," Clara said, looking at the uncovered symbol beginning to glow. "We just entered 'All going to die territory' didn't we?'"

"UNFORTUNATELY,"

"RUN!"

(Next Chapter: The Floor is Lava)

Professor Spector: Nice ship! It does kind of suck though.

Marion: Don't be fucking rude.

The implication that I was trying to make was that Kano Dollar sounded like Cave Johnson a.k.a. J.K. Simmons. The character doesn't look anything like J.K. Simmons mind you, it's just that when I read "the Terraformer", I pictured him sounding like J.K. Simmons and couldn't unhear that.

As always, comment, follow, message me if you have questions, and vote in the poll for which Doctor will appear next. It's not that I don't have plans, but your feedback helps to narrow things down!