The Rani stood in the console room of her TARDIS, accompanied by
her henchman, watching the images of the first two Doctors swirling in the air
around her.
"Pickled like gherkins in a jar," the Rani exclaimed
triumphantly.
"Mistress Rani, the time tunnel is ready to receive its first
guests," the Rani's henchman announced.
"Proceed." She looked at the two floating images. "Fated to
wander a dismal corner of the universe for twenty years. Helpless. Paralysed.
It will drive them insane!" The images of the first Two Doctors are sucked
into the massive Time Tunnel lurking in space near the Rani's TARDIS.
The Fourth Doctor is standing in the middle of a swirling
vortex, a microphone in front of him.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is a message for all the Doctors-- it's
vitally important that you listen carefully to me, for once. Our whole
existence is being threatened by a renegade Time Lord known only as the Rani.
She hates me! She even hates children! Two of my earlier selves have already
been snared in her vicious trap-- the grumpy one and the flautist, you
remember. She wants to put us out of action, lock us away in a dreary
backwater of London's East End, trapped in a time loop in perpetuity. Her evil
is all around us! I can hear the heartsbeat of a killer! She's out there
somewhere! We must be on our guard and we must stop her before she destroys
all of my other selves! Oh! Oh! Good luck, my dears!" The Fourth Doctor has a
look of desperation on his face.
In the Rani's TARDIS, her henchman is putting in the final
roundels into two stasis chambers of sorts.
"A Cyberman, and a Time Lord from Gallifrey," he announced as he
sealed each respective creature in. "The menagerie is almost complete!" The
Rani paced quickly toward the console.
"Time is literally of the essence!" The Rani flipped a few
switches on the console. "The Doctor's remaining incarnations are teetering on
the edge of a precipice!"
"You're obsessed! Don't forget what we've come here for."
"Earthlings pose no threat to my technology, imbecil! It's the
Doctor I want out of the way!" The Rani remarked fanatically.
"Interception in five seconds, Rani." The Rani's henchman
flipped a switch on the console, and the scanner screen slid open to reveal
the Doctor's TARDIS traveling through space.
"Although I will miss the challenge." The Rani had an evil smirk
on her face.
"Three... Two... One..."
"Activate!" A bright flash of light came out of the Rani's
TARDIS and whizzed over to the Doctor's TARDIS, throwing it violently off
course.
In the middle of some sort of garden with a huge sailing ship in
the water on one side, there is a wheezing groaning sound as the Doctor's
TARDIS materializes. The door opens and the Seventh Doctor walks out, followed
by Ace. The two begin walking away from the TARDIS.
"Oh to be in China, now that November's here!" The Seventh
Doctor exclaimed happily.
"When was the last time you had that junk heap in for an M.O.T.,
Professor?" Ace asked.
"Oh don't be cynical, Ace. The instruments are just a little
erratic, that's all."
"Great Wall of China? It looks more like the Cutty Sark to me!"
"Hmm..." The Doctor stared thoughtfully at the large sailing
ship. "...Not a soul in sight!" They reach a trash bin, and the Seventh Doctor
picks up a newspaper which is laying on the top of the bin. He glances at the
date. "1973? I didn't set the coordinates for 1973!" Ace looked around.
"Oy! Is anybody there?"
"If I didn't know better, I could be convinced that someone has
deliberately taken us off course!" The Doctor suddenly noticed Ace looking at
a sign on a nearby gate. The sign reads 'Cutty Sark Gardens.' "Ace, what are
you doing?" There is a bright flash.
Ace is standing in the middle of a crowded square, 'Albert
Square' according to the sign, next to a man with curly hair, wearing an
appallingly tasteless outfit.
"Hey, you're not the Doctor!" Ace exclaimed.
"Yes I am, Ace! We seem to have slipped a groove in time. Where
did all these people come from?" The Sixth Doctor responded. He looked around
a bit. "And where are we?" The two walked through the street markets. Ace
suddenly noticed an interesting brown jacket on one of the many coatracks on
the sidewalks.
"Hey, Professor, look at this!" She ran over to where the jacket
was and started taking it off the hanger.
"All right, darling, special discount for you, seeing as it's
nearly Christmas," one of the salesmen remarked.
"Oh, wicked!" Ace responded. Another saleswoman pulled the first
one aside.
"Here, what do you mean discounts? This year's been bad enough
as it is without you giving things away!" She accosted him.
"Don't worry, about it, all right?"
"Hey, do you like that, love?" The saleswoman asked Ace. The
Sixth Doctor looked at the jacket with disgust.
"It clashes!" He exclaimed, holding it next to his outfit.
"I tell you, they're going to be the rage in 1994," the
saleswoman commented. The Sixth Doctor suddenly had a grave expression on his
face.
"Wha-" Suddenly there was a bright flash of light, which cut off
the Sixth Doctor.
The Third Doctor is standing in roughly the same location, next to Melanie
Bush.
"What's happening?" Mel asked the Third Doctor.
"Change! You, me, everything. It's as though someone is rooting
through my personal time stream," the Third Doctor responded.
"But what on Earth for?"
"Earth? Yes." The Third Doctor walked up to someone at one of
the fruit stands. "Excuse me, my good woman, but what year is this?" The woman
suddenly noticed a boy stealing an orange.
"Oy, you! Come back here! He's just nicked an orange!" She
exclaimed. Her friend turned to her.
"Well shouldn't your Martin be looking after the store?" She
asked her.
"He's never here when you want him. I wish my Arthur were still
alive." She suddenly noticed the Third Doctor handling some of the fruit. "Hey
what do you think you're doing? Stop messing the goods about! Do you want to
buy something or what?"
"Well, considering the quality of everything you have, madam,
I'd say that your prices are rather expensive," the Third Doctor responded.
Mel, in the meantime, was looking over some of the clothes.
"I see flares are back in fashion," she commented to the other
woman. The woman walked over to her.
"Yeah, everything from the last century seems to be having a
comeback. I just wish my looks were!" She remarked.
"Last century?" The Third Doctor inquired.
"Well, what year is this?" Mel asked.
"Oh don't you start! There's enough oddballs here as it is!" The
other woman responded.
"Madam! What year is it?" The Doctor asked forcefully.
"Two thousand and thirteen!" The two women responded
simultaneously. Suddenly there was another bright flash of light.
The same two women, though much younger, are standing in a
similar market talking to each other. A young boy is next to them playing.
"Yeah, I can remember exactly where I was when Kennedy was
assassinated," one woman commented to the other. "But don't tell Arthur!" The
other woman laughed.
"How long ago was that, then?" The other woman asked.
"Well, it'll be ten years," the first woman responded.
"No?" The woman asked in disbelief. She suddenly noticed the
young boy, her son, messing about a bit. "Ian, will you behave?"
The Sixth Doctor was walking down the sidewalk with his arm
around Susan Foreman.
"Well, who are you?" Susan asked the Sixth Doctor.
"Precisely. I am the Doctor!" The Sixth Doctor responded. Susan
laughed.
"Oh no you're not! You're nothing like my grandfather!"
"I feel as though I've been pulled backwards through time, and
my companions are being drawn back with me." Susan suddenly appeared
frightened. She looked around nervously.
"Ian? Barbara?" She called out. "Where are the others?" She
asked the Sixth Doctor.
"Don't ask. Someone is trying to separate me from the TARDIS,
and knows my affinity for this planet." Susan appeared upset.
"Where's grandfather? MY Doctor! The ORIGINAL!"
"The inrush of time zones is designed to seal us all together!"
Suddenly, there was yet another bright flash of light.
Sarah Jane Smith was wandering down a sidewalk, lost. A woman walking next
to Sarah, turned and began to talk.
"My skin's been great since I started using all-over sunblock,"
she commented to Sarah. "I think it frightens the law."
"Law?" Sarah asked incredulously. "Since when?" Sarah suddenly
spotted the Third Doctor. She began to run towards him.
"Hey! Where you've been hiding, then?" The woman called out
toward Sarah.
Sarah caught up with the Third Doctor and began to walk with
him.
"Hi! I thought you'd be involved somewhere along the line," she
remarked to him.
"Hmm.. What we're seeing here, Sarah," he paused for a second,
"is the work of a genius. An expert in time distortion! A time traveller
maybe, and an ingenius operator."
"Well then we must get back to the TARDIS, Doctor!"
"It's at the other side of the river, I think. You know, we seem
to be flitting around in some sort of twenty year time loop. 1973..."
"Well, 1993..." Sarah caught on, and then realized the current
implications. "...2013?!"
"Yeah, well time distortion of this nature requires an exact
localized focus."
"But why this street market in London?" The Third Doctor stopped
and looked at Sarah.
"This isn't the focus, Sarah."
In the Rani's TARDIS, she was monitoring the Third Doctor's
conversation.
"The wandering fools! They're getting too near the truth." The
Rani looked up at her henchman. "Release the specimens!"
The Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, and Perpugilliam Brown were on a
sidewalk. Suddenly, an energy bolt blasted the ground near them. They jumped
back against a wall. Nyssa looked up at the Doctor.
"Feeding time at the zoo?" She asked.
"And the companions went in two by two," the Doctor responded
gravely.
"This isn't Noah's Ark, Doctor!" Peri exclaimed. A Cyberman and
an Ogron were marching towards the group.
"Maybe it is," the Fifth Doctor answered. He unrolled his hat
and put it on. "When I say run, run... RUN!" The Doctor made a mad dash away
from the Cyberman and Ogron, accompanied by Nyssa and Peri. The Cyberman fired
his Cybergun at them. The Doctor looked around and started running in the
opposite direction from his companions. "This way!"
"No!" Peri cried out. The Doctor spun around and chased after
his companions. Peri ran up to a woman standing in the middle of the square.
"Look out! You've got to clear the streets, you're in terrible
danger!" She yelled to the woman.
"What's your game?" The woman asked, looking at Peri strangely.
"You've got to get away from here!" Nyssa reiterated.
"Who says? You start shoving me around, you'll know about it!"
"It's no good," the Fifth Doctor shook his head, "they're in
different Time Zones-- to them we're the strangers!" The Fifth Doctor dashed
away, followed by his companions. Monsters appeared in store windows and on
street stands.
The Fifth Doctor was wandering around aimlessly.
"Have you any idea where we're going?" Peri asked.
"Doctor, where's the TARDIS?" Nyssa inquired. The Doctor ran for
a park.
"Twenty years back and three miles away! COME ON! He shoved them
past the gate into the park.
At the other end of the park, they ran to the gate, which was
locked with a padlock and chain. A menagerie of monsters lines the streets
outside the park, including a Robot, a Time Lord, an Ogron, a Cyberman, and
many more. The Doctor looked out across the street at the Queen Victoria bar.
The Rani stood outside with her gun aimed at them.
"You can't escape, Doctor!" The Rani yelled out. "Say goodbye,
Doctors! You're all going on a long journey! A VERY long journey!"