An Unearthly Child (TV Episode) - Thoughts

 One of the most groundbreaking science fiction shows of all time, one that has lasted for over 60 years, one that has won numerous awards and have made many a career and told many a story about both the world today and also leading us towards the future, a show which could be anywhere and any when, and open to so many possibilities...

It almost seems obvious when one looks back, but we open on this series, on a single, small, interesting tale about an Old Man, his granddaughter, and two of the granddaughter's teachers as they are flung back in time to see cavemen and their lives, and help deal with a small power struggle within a caveman tribe.

Balatro - Thoughts

 So, what if I told you that you could have all of the creature comforts of playing poker, without the threat of losing all your money to the house over a bad couple of hands?

Trying to play over and over Balatro, trying to learn when or what is the best hands to use when, along with the myriad of jokers at your disposal, trying to create each run and make the best run possible, even beyond the 8 ante limit into the endless, trying to make the exact runs to reach Infinite Score and the endless possibilities.

Or you could be Frezno Infernos and win on your second game with the Glory that is Two Pair?

Welcome to Balatro.

Whose Line Hoedown - Snow

Winter's made it's chilly call, on this Friday Afternoon.
It looks like the North Pole, from here down as far as it looks to Cancun.
With school out it gives a child a beautiful sledding opportunity,
Just make sure not to turn into a George of the Jungle Parody.

An Unearthly Child (Target Novelization) - Thoughts

 (Warning: Possible Spoilers ahead)

A  new year means a new year's resolution for me to possibly go around and explore using when I am trying to figure out just exactly I want to do and how I want to do it. 2024, as a whole, was not perfect in the mental health department, but it did give me enough time to ponder on just exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to explore my options coming into the new year. 

It's what led us to this point, where I have lead the few who dare to come past the spoiler tag into, and as such, welcome. Over the year I will be discussing and talking about various Media I have read into, or watched, or seen, mainly as a way to get my mental juices flowing and get me consistently writing, so I do apologize if it does sound like I am rambling. I am merely putting my feet together to try and figure out a way of doing this.

So then. An Unearthly Child.

Some of you may have heard of this name because of the backlash from it not being able to be easily viewed thanks to a child trying to cling onto their father's work and claiming that they were the first and as such, the "Birth", of Doctor Who. While this claim is completely laughable, we are not yet talking about the Episode which created from it an over 60 year franchise that has found new and innovative ways to reinvent itself against changing norms and changing narratives.

One such reinvention was reintroducing the way that they brought back stories of old to the children, in the days before VHS. (For younger Audiences, VHS was the Video Medium before DVD) This was what became known, and what became heralded, as the "TARGET NOVELIZATION", A short form where the writers of Doctor Who could bring back these old stories that were either lost to time or weren't being shown any longer, and rerelease them to the public to let them be re-experienced in a new and fascinating manner.

An Unearthly Child is an ok "Time Travelers meet Caveman" story. None of the future things that people know Doctor Who for are here, not the alien timelord (He is merely the Doctor here, and he does not act the way he would, even later in the incarnation), we have the introduction of his granddaughter, and two of her human schoolteachers. Honestly though, for the introduction story, it is a fine way to show the premise and get everything settled and moving forward (Before of Course the Dead Planet came in and well...Dalekmania).

But this story, retold nearly 20 or so years later, in the 80s, would give a fresh coat of paint on the story, reintroduce the original tale to the youth, and show them how this time travel show began. Which, honestly, barring two things, is a very faithful adaptation to the script of the episode, with some added flourish by Famous and noted Doctor Who writer and Former Script Editor Terrance Dicks.

First, is the way that the original episode is written, trying to adapt both the broadcast version, and the Pilot episode, which are nearly identical (Barring the complete lack of pacing for the Pilot, the attack of Ian to the Doctor by Susan calling out for them to stop her grandfather...I know as a Doctor Who fan this is almost blasphemy, but I would trade the pilot for Marco Polo so Season 1 could be finished). 

Secondly, we need to briefly mention the idea of rose-tinted glasses. The First Doctor in the original episode is a bit of a grump, a jerk, he does not care about others (except for his granddaughter) and the superiority of himself that these people aren't listening to him. An Unearthly Child is the introduction to the Time Traveler to having companions, he would be very angry, in terms of his character at this moment.

Sadly, in this part, is where the book somewhat lacks, where how the lines remained the same, the way he acts in the book brings up images of a later 1st Doctor, one who has already gone through and aged past the original's coldness and near total apathy towards the Cavemen and the humans, to the point of walking over with a pointed rock.....and well, you get the picture.

Overall, it is a fascinating book to read, although it is a bit of a victim of rose-tinting the past.

However, I recommend people do go out and try to read it, if they can.

The 11th Professor's Adventures - Minisode 1 - The TARDIS's New Desktop

 Minisode 1 - The TARDIS’s New Desktop

The Professor stood at the console of the new TARDIS console room, letting himself take in all of the new sights and sounds that echoed around him, letting him feel and experience everything new that the TARDIS had cobbled together just for him. They had just left Lily’s home, and Lily had quickly left for the corridors to see her old room, back where she had left it all those years ago, and to see what she needed to do in order to update it to fit her current needs, which had left the Professor to explore the new console room in full while Lily was distracted.

The Professor always had a fascination, almost a love, towards the older style of console rooms, where the console room, while feeling like a sort of meeting place for the pilot and other passengers, it felt like a sort of common area for everyone involved, with things that could decorate the walls and built and hidden all around the room, a sort of old mansion, with hidden compartments, and such. The Coral design filled him with such indescribable angle for his unnecessary everything felt about how it grew and presented itself, and while the more toybox-ish or gear-shaped console rooms were big enough to show off the TARDIS’s majesty and overall grandeur and overwhelming presence, it did feel like someone was compensating for something whenever the console rooms were far larger than what was required.

So here he was, in the console room of his TARDIS, a classic eight walled design. Behind him, the door to the TARDIS was in perfect shine, with a gigantic window peering out of the mirror on the other side, a one way mirror, in order to protect the occupants inside and finally, for the first time, allow the Professor to see outside of the TARDIS without having to turn on the scanner. Following along to the right, the wall was covered with big, ancient white roundels, showing off with it, and stretching around the room behind all of the furniture which was placed around the room, were beautiful darkened wood walls, which kept the light at just the perfect temperature as to not blind anyone as they stepped into the console room, especially given how pale and gray the floors were, a much more simple and cold design when compared to the walls making up the console room all around him. 

Against the wall right of the door out of the TARDIS, was an elegant red velvet chair, a chair that has seen more than a half dozen Professor incarnations and still somehow survived multiple internal TARDIS regenerations, including more than once when the Professor regenerated inside the console room, with it being a witness to the event. Next to the beautiful chair, was an end table with an hourglass frame, a small lamp sitting on top of it, almost ironic for it to be inside the console room of a Timelord’s TARDIS.

Next to the chair, continuing on the right, is a floor to ceiling bookcase, full of books and trinkets from all across the multiverse, telling stories and locations from all sorts of places, all organized and set up to make it look as colorful as possible, except for the bottom shelf, in which besides books, and some small trinkets, and the cherry candy collection jar, in the center, sat a little chest, which if it were to be scanned, would read as if it wouldn’t exist, as if the space itself were empty. 

This, is the current resting place of the Professor’s journal, the collection of all of the Professor’s notes, theories, and stories of the people and places he has been to on his travels, bloated with so much paper inserted into it that it eventually became a hassle just to carry it on his person in the last incarnation, and so he keeps it protected and locked within his TARDIS until it is necessary to use. However, he kept that single bit of information secret. As he had learned, it is better to have people think you have a trump card on your person, then know you have the trump card in hiding, especially given the ways some villains like to play mind games onto others.

Next to the bookshelf, continuing on the right, were three pieces of furniture all clinging to one wall like some kind of “three’s a crowd” joke and trying to find someplace to fit themselves. An old Grandfather clock that ran at odd intervals and ticked at random times, as it slowly tried to fix itself. A Jukebox that ran itself off of cassettes, and a storage area in the middle for some of the most used tapes, unless the TARDIS needed to use a particular song and the tape just “magically” found its way inside the jukebox and began to play, and a very old piece of TARDIS tech that the Professor found useful in the last couple of regenerations, the Astral map projector, or in some situations, a Time-Space visualizer, in which he was able to see where they were in the multiversal void, after a large amount of tinkering and reworking that was needed in order for it to work. 

Close by to these three pieces of tech was the single fully visible roundel on the wall, slightly popped open, revealing a node with an empty hole where something once used to be. This, like a hunter showing off its prize mounted on the wall, was where the chameleon circuit once was plugged in, which would have allowed the TARDIS to change its shape to anything that was required in order to blend into the local environment. Rather, it would have, if it had not snapped the chip in two and sent the remains into a black hole, never to be seen or heard from again, leaving the TARDIS free reign to rework the outer shell as she saw fit through backchannels and other such methods, which is how the exterior was able to stay in it’s wardrobe like state.

Next on the wall tour comes to the wall where the gigantic scanner was, where almost half the wall is a set in sliding wall where a classic scanner is set into the wall, opened to show the sparking stars of some universe they are currently inside, while along the scanner, on either side, were these ornate, carved flourishes, painted in gold like the gold trim the mirror outside is surrounded by, giving it just enough light that makes it look like it is lighting up the scanner, like some kind of inset frame for the old inset scanner.

Following next on the wall tour, was the door leading into the corridors, surrounded all around by something more important to the Professor, far more important to him, are the pictures of him and his companions over the years surrounding it. Pictures of his family, of his life, all for him to look at and smile and remember, at least more of the good times than of the bad, a connection to his memories, a physical manifestation of them, if he never needed to reflect upon his life or needed to think. He always found that even though they aren’t with him at this moment, they still always offered him good advice in the hardest of struggles. They were his family, after all. At least, he thought of them as such.

Next on the tour of the walls which contained the console room, on the right of the door leading into the corridors and the collection of photos, was that of a wall full of little odds and ends, like buttons, switches, and everything else that could make up an old fashioned fault locator, another ancient TARDIS device made redundant with time and upgrades, but has found new life as extra and additional controls for the TARDIS when it comes to troubleshooting, repair work of any kind, big or small, or even something as simple as needing extra power from other systems. In general terms, the controls on this wall were that of an engineering station, a monitoring station for the TARDIS to check over its systems and make sure that everything is running smoothly. 

Nearing the end of the wall tour, we have the wall dominated by one central object, an internal desk, with shelving and cabinets for use in a wide variety of means, all cobbled together to make it look as presentable as possible, with little added in things for convenience, like more storage for cassette tapes for the jukebox, a typewriter for quick notes or forged papers to blend into certain universes they land in, and even a few tools and a toolbox for more repair work, which when you are traveling in a TARDIS, a lot of times, you end up having to do repairs on the fly during an escape, a chase, or any number of other situations.

Finally, comes the centerpiece of the entire console room. For a console room cannot be called as such without a console within, the control system of the TARDIS itself, and one of the most important areas of the TARDIS being as a whole. If the Eye could be considered a TARDIS’s heart, then the console could be considered a sort of temporal lobe, the part of the brain which reads and interprets information for the rest of the sentient being.

A lot like the room as a whole, The Professor had a certain heartful fondness for when it came to the classic designs of the consoles for which he used to pilot the TARDIS. Specifically, the coral designed console always looked like the mushroom throne of the Caterpillar from Wonderland, with the console bit being the throne and the rotor playing the role of the Caterpillar looming over everything with the crystals rising and falling within playing the part of its arrogant, unamused expression. 

So, as a final centerpiece of the room, the console was that of a much older model, around the model of the 5th Doctor’s first TARDIS console design, even right down to matching to the walls by being made out of a more wooden base and exterior, with a cap on top of the hexagonal like time rotor, to protect it as it fell down, to stop it from any damage coming into the console room, but also to stop the Professor from putting anything on top of it and treating the time rotor like some kind of impromptu shelf for clutter.

As the Professor stood at the console, taking in all of his surroundings and taking in slow breaths, finally, for the first time since he was in this incarnation, given how he had to escape from an invading Ergon searching to destroy him, and then having to help out one of his oldest friends with a Rani who had long since given up any subtlety and somehow developed an even worse moral code when it came to beings she saw as lesser than herself, finally he could take in a breath or two and relax.

He had a friend with him once again, one of his oldest friends, to give her a few stories to tell around a campfire and give her a retirement tour to put her mind at ease and to give her a proper thank you since the people she worked with treated her like dirt and threw her away like trash for no concernable reason besides not following protocol as he could see.

He had, in all intents and purposes, a brand new TARDIS, freshened up and remodeled down to the very look of the exterior, all ready and able to travel the multiverse and search for new stories to see and new people to help, and hope beyond hope that no one else decides to try and blast a hole the size of a watermelon through the front door trying to find a way to get at the pilot and passengers within.

Finally, he had a new face, courtesy of the Ergon and its hunt to try and destroy him by order of his master, as he was sure of, since he was able to continue to exist, which told him one terrifying prospect about the current state of affairs.

Somewhere, out there in the void, who knows where…

Omega still lurked.

Omega survived the war, and was able to escape both Gallifrey’s dual destructions, but the final days of the war, and who knows what else in order to survive onward, and now, he has begun to search and destroy what he deems are threats to his “legacy”, whatever it could be after the truths about his crimes and the crimes of the other 2 founders of Gallifrey became common knowledge.

The 11th Professor Adventures - Episode 2 - Reunion, Part 3

 Episode 2 - Reunion, Part 3

As the Professor and Lily hurried down the hall, headed for the front door, something was beginning to eat at them more and more. Something vile. There was something that terrified them the more that they thought about it. The Rani, hiding out in a hospital, using these pieces of paper to collect people like some kind of twisted bug catcher, and draining them for her own sick purposes. Right out in the open. 

As Lily checked out with the front desk, The Professor’s eyes were locked on the front door, and this building feeling of dread was forming deeper and deeper within him. Something was wrong, very wrong here, like they were walking into something, and fast. So as Lily continued talking, The Professor walked closer and closer to the front door, looking around at the nearby surroundings. Nothing, flat land to the cars, nothing to hide in, except for the two hedges, one on each side, lining the pathway to the parking lot. That feeling of dread was building more and more inside his gut as he looked at the hedges, watching them, as he reached for the door, and that’s when he saw one of them move, almost shaking.

He cracked the door open, to test his theory, and was met with a calm arid day, not a single wisp of wind, surely not enough to cause this much movement in the hedges. He took a slight breath, to strengthen his nerves, slipped off his coat, and slowly, with one hand, stuck the coat out the small crevice he had created.

The next few moments were all such a flash. Something rushed out of the bushes as fast as it could for the coat, snarling and growling. A loud roar that almost sounded like that of a tiger or of an elder male Lion. A scream of panic from the front desk clerk behind him. The door swung out, trapping the beast against the brick wall that barely stuck out from the door and one of the doors themselves, which banged on the glass trying to get itself free.

“Teach!” Lily called out, running over to check on the two, as she looked at the creature he had trapped in the small space between the wall and the door. She couldn’t even tell that it was human to begin with, it took her several seconds to realize that she was looking at a human, let alone a male. Even from its short trip, from the hospital to the local police precinct, the skin on its face was stretched and thinning, especially around the mouth, where the mouth was constantly moving around, it had developed saliva like foam, a few of the teeth in it’s mouth were cracked…this person’s hair was falling out at the roots, like it couldn’t even contain or handle itself, and their fingers were rough, from where it looked like he was clawing at the bricks and the concrete. “Oh my god…” The only words that were able to form out of her mouth, as she looked at what had happened to this man, not even a man, had to be a young one…

“Adrenaline overdose.” The Professor spoke, trying to keep the door shut as close as possible to the wall, as to keep the man contained, but the force the beast was using was actively pushing the door out, just by an inch, slamming into the glass door with all of its weight. “With some other bits and chemicals, but that massive strength, it has to be a massive dose of adrenaline…”

“Adrenaline should not be able to do this, Professor…” Lily spoke, her eyes locked onto the beast.

“Like I said, it’s been spiked with some other chemicals, probably taken from a few other species…” The Professor tried as hard as he could, but he knew this wouldn’t last forever, the beast’s eyes were locked right onto him, slamming onto the glass door, actively trying to claw through the thick panes of glass to reach its prey. “Guesses, not at the moment…Having to fully focus on not trying to get attacked…” He looked into the building, seeing a few officers at the ready, watching the scene at the door, all ready to leap in if the scene deteriorated. “Don’t come any closer!” The Professor yelled out, watching them. “Stay back, we don’t know what could happen here!”

“Professor, we can’t just stay here, if she did this to one person…” Lily looked at the beast with terror, but her courage began to bubble in her chest, the two hearing the glass crackle and splinter, as they could see at the edges of the door where the glass met the frame, it was fracturing and cracking with every slam. “Professor…”

“I know, I know, I can see it…” He spoke, trying all he could, until eventually the glass door shattered, and the beast lunged for the Professor, his hands clenched like full claws, going right for the face of the newly regenerated ti-

For a moment, the Professor thought he went deaf. The loud boom that echoed in his ears, and the ringing that sounded like an alarm clock buried within multiple bedsheets. The next moment, smoke filled his vision, followed by a flash, an almost blinding flash, that swirled around his senses and nearly made him fall. Was it a flashbang? Was it a popper? His senses were so overwhelmed he didn’t notice the beast fall to the ground until his ears finally registered the dull thud, as the ringing went further and further away, the smoke rising higher into the air, and the flash fading from his eyes.

Eventually, he regained enough self-awareness after a few more seconds, looking around the scene, but his eyes first locked onto his friend Lily. Her eyes were narrowed, cool, collected, and angry, down into an offensive pose, a revolver pulled from her side band, her service weapon, and ready for another attack from the beast, the wisps of smoke rising from the barrel. He followed the length of the barrel, and the path of the bullet, right to the creature on the ground, expecting a tell-tale sign of a bullet hole, but as he looked at the creature for a few seconds, no blood appeared. He slowly looked back at the revolver, and followed the trail again, and still, nothing. No sign that the creature had been shot, and no sign of any bullet hole. So slowly, he lowered himself down to get a better look, as other police officers joined him, going through the motions of checking the creature, checking him, and waving them off, as he slowly pulled on one of the few pieces of clothing the creature had clung to him, and there it was. Mushroomed against the man’s shoulder, pinning down a bit of the fabric and a quickly forming bruise on the other side, was that of a rubber bullet.

“I never shoot live rounds, Professor.” Lily said, looking at her friend with relief that he’s alright for the moment, walking over to help him back up. “Never have. I learned from you, about the belief on how precious, no matter what, life can be.”

He looked to his friend, and without a second moment to pass, gave her a quick hug as thank you, pushing away the revolver in her hand, still frightened of the gun she possessed, but the adrenaline in his system was quickly fading. “Long talks about weapons are needed…” He spoke, regaining his composure. “But at this moment, we’ve got to get back to the hospital, and stop The Rani from making any more golems.”

—----------------------

The Rani watched from her glass screen device with almost disdain, if not full blown anger had taken over her internal landscape. Watching the scans of her latest creation, she could read the damage coming in, in real time, when the rubber bullet hit the golem’s shoulder, and shock began to overtake the adrenaline within the golem’s brain. Her nails scratched along the backside of the screen, the only visible showing of anger she allowed herself to show, as she stood in a darkened hospital room, the blinds all pulled across the windows, and the lights turned off. 

“You can never find good enough material for testing out of Earthlings…” She said, staring at the screen, with the scans coming more and more in. Possible hurt shoulder, maybe fractured, shock settling in, the adrenaline starting to fade from the brain. “A constant source of adrenaline, perhaps some sort of injector device, or internal system forcing it to replenish what is lost once the process begins…” 

She slowly swiped across the glass screen, pushing away more and more scans of her golem creation, until finally all that remained on the screen was a big red button of sorts across the screen, stretching as wide as it could be, as she let herself express displeasure, a sigh released from her lips. 

“It would seem I have a lot more work to do. Shame too, First attempt looked promising in some areas.” She spoke in subdued anger, tapping the screen with one of her crimson red nails, right on the button. “But, science must continue as always, as it always must.”

—---------------------

As the Professor and Lily got into her car, trying to get it started as fast as possible, they could hear, even through the windows of the car, of the panic brewing at the entrance to the precinct. A couple officers, all gathered around what was once a human being just like them, one of them quickly having gotten down to help, while one of them, who looked like the front desk clerk from this distance, hurried back inside, possibly to call medical aid.

“What happened?” Lily’s eyes were glued to the scene, watching more and more help run to the person in trouble. “What happened?!”

“I worded what I said very carefully.” The Professor spoke, sullen, not having the heart to turn and see the scene rapidly unfolding right outside his window. “About it being an overdose of Adrenaline…”

Lily stared out at the scene rapidly unfolding outside the car’s window, as the feeling in her stomach, first from the shock of the revolver firing, and now the sickness of what The Rani did to that poor man, or whoever was now lying on the ground, got worse and worse. This was someone. Someone’s friend. Someone’s child, be it who or where they came from, that wasn’t the point. This was a living being, a person, with loves, desires, flaws, people who cared about them, but The Rani didn’t care. She didn’t see any of that about this individual. All she saw, all she ever sees, is a thing. A testing rat. An experiment in progress to take and modify to her whims to use and abuse and when they had served their usefulness dictated by her, she just lets them perish, it made her sick, seeing those people, he co-workers, people she knew and worked with for years, trying to help something they knew nothing about…

“Brave heart, and steady on, Lily.” The Professor spoke in a somber tone, patting her hand which rested on the armrest between them. 

Lily looked to her old friend, and finally pulled away from the scene, leaving her co-workers to try all they could to help them, and all Lily had in her heart was hope, even if it was misplaced, it’s all she had going.

For the entire drive to the hospital, the interior of the car was silent. A dull, tense silence that echoed within every crevice and alcove within the car. For Lily, it was this deep anger that was boiling within her, towards the Rani and her sick and twisted disdain and almost emotionless ways she must have treated that individual prior to him becoming the golem. For the Professor, it was of a different nature. This would be the first time since his memories had returned for him, that he would be facing someone from that time, from the War, and who knows what was about to happen the moment they stepped within those white, sterile walls.

—----------------------

Some time later, the two found themselves back inside the hospital, on the floor with all of the patients brought there due to this entire scandal to begin with, and where, at least the Professor believed, the epicenter of this entire situation was located. Where the two stood, the Professor and Lily could see down the hallway, the long hallway, split right down the middle by the large circular desk where the nurses all gathered to watch the ward and the patients as they walked down the hall, away and towards their rooms. Unlike the basement, this place was clean, meticulously so, no spare gurneys, no wheelchairs, nothing to get in the way of patients testing their limits as they walked along the road to recovery.

“Right here, with all of the people she’s hurt…” Lily muttered under her breath, watching patients walk by them, some of them better than others, as they relearn or test themselves to see if they are well enough to head home, for the long road of home recovery, one of which was a young enough kid, it had to have been Lily’s age when she first took off with the Professor, with a determined look on their face, taking each step slowly and on their own.

The Professor couldn’t even look, feeling his hearts burn and ache seeing these people, seeing first hand people she’s harmed for her collection, and the momentary flash of memories of a war hospital, and the sounds that echoed in his mind before quickly shaking them away to focus on the task at hand. “Right in the center of the chaos she wrought.” He spoke to her, softly enough so the nurses wouldn’t catch on. “It would be a doctor, or a public face, someone who the patients see, and would be comfortable around, to allow her to come that close for them, as far as I could see from the X-Ray.” He slowly watched life in the hallway, after getting his nerves to stabilize, trying to watch for anything or anyone that would stand out in a hospital. “Best way to look over the possibilities coming in…”

“Good god…” Lily spoke in a hushed tone, one of the nurses walking by, catching an ear or two trying to listen in on the conversation, although all they got in return was a stern look in response and a scattering like crows, trying to find themselves scarce, and as soon as possible. “How can someone be so cold…”

“She was always like that.” The Professor spoke. “It was said one of the pet mice she grew, one of her first…if you could call them successful experiments, growing white mice to the size of tigers, it was said the reason she fled Gallifrey was because one of them got free and ate the Lord President.” Lily looked at him in utter shock. “Another way the story went was that the mice only got to his leg, but still caused quite a bit of damage. Either way, she fled home, and wasn’t allowed back till the war.”

“Which you explained in the car, when she turned into…” He nodded to her, the two having gone silent, as they watch the hallway, until someone caught the Professor’s attention.

Out of one of the rooms, near the end, where the window was, letting light pour down the long corridor so as to not have to use the buzzing bulbs above, stepped this tall woman in a doctor’s coat. Now, besides the doctor’s coat, the darkened pants that almost look brown in the current light, and the boots she wore, she didn’t look any different, she almost could have blended in. Except for everything else that was a vibrant shade of red. Her nails. Her hair. The frame of her glasses. Her shirt, or what little they could see of it from behind the doctor’s coat. Sticking out like a sore thumb, especially as her eyes locked onto the green coated man down the hall, and for a brief couple of moments, the two stared at each other. 

Almost right into the soul of each other, and for the briefest of moments, The Professor didn’t see her hiding as a doctor, but as a War Medic, in a hospital very much like the one they’re in, ran ragged and tattered clothed, worked to the bone, her hands covered in things indescribable just from a quick glance. For the Rani’s point of view, she didn’t see the young man with the green coat, but the tall and dark clothed man, with a gray face mask, hair that shone the light even in the darkness,and those eyes that could cut through stone.

“Rani…” The Professor uttered, looking towards the red haired doctor, reaching slightly behind him to try and get Lily’s attention.

The red haired doctor didn’t utter a sound. Her eyes still locked onto the man in the green coat, as her memories played in her mind, and the fear settled in, she stared at him for just a moment longer, before rushing for one of the nearby doors, a stairwell.

“WAIT!” The Professor cried out, taking off after the woman. That stirred Lily from her own contemplation, seeing her friend take off for the stairwell, after the doctor with red hair- no, after the Rani, and Lily’s eyes go wide. She was right there. She was right there the entire time. Lily even talked to the woman, the woman who caused all this pain and suffering, hidden in plain sight, the woman who hurt all these people and put on a disguise of someone who wished to make them better, instead turning them into vats of chemicals and guinea pigs for her own sick and twisted games. She quickly took off, easily catching up with the Professor as the two hurried up the stairwell after her, hurrying as fast as they could for the roof access, hearing the woman just a few steps ahead.

“YOU ARE UNDER ARREST!” Lily screamed as she ran up the steps, passing her friend, just by a couple of steps, red in the face with rage as far as the Professor could tell. Anger was beginning to overtake his friend, and she could be walking straight into a trap, even worse, if she didn’t calm down. Again, Lily repeated those same words. “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST! STOP, AND PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!”

Laughter began to echo down the stairwell, beckoning the two further and further up, as they neared the roof access door. “I wonder what was worse for you, Earthling?” A soothing, almost seductive voice began to echo down, beckoning the two to come up to her. “Was it when you saw the golem, my personal creation? Was it when you realized what I needed your people for?” Then came the almost sadistic chuckle. “Or was it when you realized who I was, and how close you came without even realizing what you were stumbling into?” 

The laughter got into Lily’s head, fueling her anger further, making her run, run faster, as she neared it, just around the cor- she felt a hard tug behind her, as the Professor grabbed her and held her back, as the laughter echoed again and again, Lily fighting it to try and reach the roof access door. “Professor! LET GO OF ME!” She cried out.

“She’s baiting you, Lily, can’t you see?!” The Professor spoke with a firm attitude, holding onto his friend at the bottom of the stairs leading up to the roof, as he slowly pointed to the door. “Look.” He said, trying to make her focus. “The door, focus on the door!”

She took an eye at the door, her eyes still seeing only red, but willing to give her old friend a chance. The roof access door was perfectly cleaned, shining a big, vibrant red, with the bar across the door to push it open, with even a shine to- wait… She watched the door again, something not adding up to her. A shine, with no swinging lights, how could it have a moving shine- There it was again, the moving shine, rather, a shimmer. A TARDIS shield, around the door. No, The TARDIS IS the door.

“She wanted you to run right into the door, and be thrown down, most likely…” The Professor spoke, holding tight onto Lily as to keep her safe, as she was coming down from her anger-induced high, staring at the door to the roof, or rather, the Rani’s TARDIS masquerading as the door to the roof.

The laughter echoed again, drawing the two to come closer, to dark try their luck against the door. “Must you always ruin my fun, Soldier?” The Rani’s voice came through what must have sounded like a speakerphone from within the TARDIS, amplified just enough as to drive them further after her, to feed the chase and then disintegrate when they hit the shields. “All I was doing was some maintenance on my chemical reserves, after all.”

“Maintenance?” The Professor asked with a raised tone to his voice. “That’s what you call this? The injuring and stealing from innocents, to hide like a wolf in sheep’s clothing and to toy with the emotions of someone just trying to help others?”

“You’re one to talk, Soldier.” Her voice sank darker, more angry at the accusations thrown. “At least I know what happened to me, and I knew how to take it and use what I learned. You. You didn’t remember. You just woke up like it was all a bad nightmare, walked right off and did what you used to do, like some kind of rebirth.”

“And what, these kids, the people you sold those fake permits too…” Lily said, her voice slightly shaky. “What were they in all of this, hmm? Collateral? Gifts? Did you even see their names on them, or did you not even bother with something so simple as that before you started taking from them?!”

“Earthlings? Those people, running on pure ego and blinded by the possibility of impressioning their superiority upon others of their age?” The Rani’s voice was cold, even colder talking about them, these people she hurt with her plan, like they were disposable. “They were useful, brutish, ran entirely on adrenaline and were perfect factories for my purposes.”

Lily shook in anger, hearing her talk about them. She remembered the woman from when she was the same age as many of those kids in those beds, walking that corridor, but this woman, the one hiding behind that door, was of an entirely different breed. Speaking about life like it was nothing more than something to be tossed away when they were done toying and prodding with their lives. Her eyes watched the door, as it shone again and again, the shield kept turning around and around, or what she could guess was the shield, as an idea struck her. Maybe, she can’t get to her, and maybe, the police or forces here wouldn’t know how to handle her or this case, but perhaps…

The Professor kept watch on the door, feeling just as ill, hearing The Rani talk about those kids, until his focus turned to his friend. Lily had her weapon drawn, holding it tight so as to not lose her grip, as she slowly raised it to the door. “Lily…” The Professor spoke to her. “Lily, what are you doing…”

The laughter echoed once again from within the Rani’s TARDIS. “Do you HONESTLY think…” The Rani spoke, feeling all high and mighty behind the door. “That primitive little weapon could do anything against a TARDIS, you regressive little leech…”

Lily watched the shine pass by again at the door, watching it move, again and again. She has to be sure. SHe didn’t even know if this would work, nothing like the movies, seeing a massive gear or clockwork, and someone sticking something in the middle to jam the gears, but this was a bullet against a temporal traveling machine…she took a slight look to her friend, who stared at her with worry, as she slightly nodded to the door, to try and get him to see, and he must have some clue of what she is planning, but all she got in response is a very slight shrug, unsure of the plan.

She took a breath, to steel her nerves. Steady her aim.

As the shine came around again on the door, Lily took aim, and fired dead center for the door. Once again, the smoke poured from the barrel of the revolver, as the rubber bullet flew, and actually hit against the door, dead center on the shine just as it began to pass by the center of the door, impacting and mushrooming, the shine freezing cold right where it was hit. For a moment or two, nothing else occurred, Lily and the Professor watching with bated breath for if they needed to take cover from a counterattack from the temporal vessel, as they began to hear this loud buzzing coming from the door, either from the speakerphone or from something else, it was impossible to tell just what that bullet had done. For a few seconds, the two watched as the bullet hovered, almost like a lock, pressed against the door keeping the shine right where it was, before eventually, smoke began to rise from within the door.

“What…” Lily spoke, watching the smoke beginning to rise more and more, turning more and more black, blowing out fire, and sparks flying out the door, angry yelling echoing through the stairwell as The Rani roared with rage.

“WHAT DID YOU DO, YOU STUPID EARTHLING!?” The Rani roared in rage, sparks flying from the door, more and more smoke rising out of every crevice that it could, as the Professor slowly pulled back Lily, watching the door.

“Phasing shields…” He said, watching the smoke billow more and more, almost by this point obscuring the door itself by just how thick and black the smoke is growing, as he pulls Lily just underneath to the next set of stairs. “You must have shot them just as the point of phase, that shine marker…”

“Professor…” Lily said, watching the ball of smoke begin to spark more and more, a glow beginning to permeate from within the center of the mass of smoke, and a low, deep, furious groan coming from the TARDIS within. “In English, please…”

“In English?” He grabbed her hand and hurried down the stairs, pulling her down as fast as possible. “WE RUN!” The sparks keep flying around, falling down the stairs, as The Rani’s TARDIS began to take off, an emergency take off, as it tried to burn away what remained of the rubber bullet that hit it, smoke filling the staircase as the two hurried farther and farther down, aiming for the basement staircase, until finally one loud boom echoed, as the Rani’s TARDIS initiated emergency take off, plaster and concrete raining down the staircase, and the door, the real door to the roof, crashing down.

For a few moments, as the Professor and Lily hid underneath the basement stairs, as rubble clattered to the floor, They weren’t these old faces anymore, but they were their younger selves again, in a different time, in a different place. The Professor could feel Lily grab at his arm, sniffling slightly, the stress now releasing from herself, as he extended out a hug to her, as the rubble kept raining down, just little bits, not enough to bury them, but still unsafe, until finally, all that was left, was the silence, and the multiple fire alarms within the hospital behind the metal doors marking the floors, that were activated when the TARDIS took off.

—--------------------

The Professor waited outside of the precinct, in the colder air, as the sun began to set on this eventful day. For anyone else, at any time, Lily would have deserved a medal for what happened and what she did to defend so many people without fail, putting her own life out there to help others. However, given the somber look she gave him as she walked through those doors, he had this deep, burning feeling in his gut that this was not going to be a fun or satisfying ending for this story for her.

After some time, standing there, pacing back and forth between the two hedges in some desperate attempt to either stay warm or to keep his mind preoccupied, Lily slowly walked out, holding in her hands only one thing, a piece of paper, stamped “Official" on the back. 

The Professor sighted, slowly looking to Lily, who looked a little emotional, but all together was able to keep her spirits up as she walked over to him. “So, the verdict?” He asked her, although knowing in his hearts the information’s not going to be good.

“Quiet Retirement.” Lily spoke, looking him in the eye. 

He slightly covered his mouth in shock. “After everything you did to help people, help what happened, stop her from doing it to anyone else, they’re just rushing you out the door like a used dish rag?!” 

She slowly smiled, waving him off. “It was my decision. I was working on borrowed time for 5 years, they were looking for anything to find me the door and find a way to kick me out of it. The damage at the hospital kinda made it easy for them, but because of what happened with the case, best to tie it all up in one nice bow and bury the file.”

The Professor stood there in utter belief and shock over the situation. Here was this woman, this bright and shining woman, who had just saved a town’s worth of young people from the hands of a sadistic and temperamental scientist who saw them as nothing more than livestock, and yes there was minor damage to the top of a stairwell, but otherwise they were able to subvert and scare away the woman who had caused so much misery, so much pain for this little town, and they throw Lily away like a piece of used chewing gum, without any further word or to allow her to tell her side of the story to defend herself.

“That’s…” He tried to speak, but Lily can tell of the obvious look of annoyance and anger, for what happened to her. She again waves him off, slowly walking over and looping her arm around his, walking him along the parking lot to the side of the building. 

“I was already done, Professor.” She said in a somber tone, trying to stay uplifting about the situation. “All I did was one final case, one that they’ll try to keep hidden but so many will know. Like one of your adventures and the creation of stories, passed on again and again, orator from orator.” She slowly walked with him, still feeling like what happened was a dream, but happy nonetheless.

“So, what are you going to do then?” The Professor asked, looking at her as the two walked alongside the building. “Have any plans? Any family to share?”

“I dunno, Teach.” She spoke more humbly, as the two walked, nearing the end of the wall, stopping just before they could see the side of the building. “It’s a lot of time on your hands now. About that word about family, well, none to share it with, I’m afraid.” She looked at him, now with a pang of guilt showing across her face. “You know how it is for some people. Husband grows more and more irritated until one day he just walks out the door never to be seen again over the wife having more responsibility than he does. The little birds fly the nest when they are ready to see the world leaving nothing behind of their old lives.” The Professor slowly gave her a little hug, leaving a tiny smile across Lily’s lips. “No, No, It’s ok.” She said, calmly. 

“Come with me, then.” The Professor said, looking at her with an almost determined expression across his own face. “Come with me then, and let me give you an adventure or two to tell in your retirement. Besides, that’s what you deserve, if these people won’t recognize the true good you were able to pull off.”

“Oh…Oh Professor, I wouldn’t want to be a bother-” This time, it was Lily’s concerns that were waved off by the Professor, who looked at his old friend with more and more determination.

“I have been through a lot since I first met you, Lily Winters.” He said, looking at her with a stone-faced expression across his face. “I have seen a lot more, I have done so much more, and You were one of the first who helped me on my journey to reinvent myself. It would be more than an honor, it would be a privilege, to take you on a retirement tour after what you put yourself through to defend your home.”

Lily slowly looked at her friend, this madman of sorts, this traveler of stories and universes through the multiverse, to see those who are forgotten and hidden away and to give them a voice and to see their own small stories unfold, and for the briefest of moments, she pictures herself as that 16 year old kid again, standing and looking at the strange silver haired man with the genuine smile across his face, a hand extended out to her, offering to help her find her own story out amongst the chaos that lied out in the multiverse. “Ok.” She spoke with a quickly forming smile across her face. “Ok, you’ve convinced me. I’ll travel with you again, Teach. For a retirement tour.”

The Professor quickly grinned a wide, cheshire cat-like grin across his face, pulling her close, and looping his arm around hers. For the first time since his regeneration, the Professor actually felt good about the future of this particular incarnation, and where he could be headed now.

As the two turned the corner to the side of the building, however, there was something waiting for them. Sat against the side of the building, there was a sort of wardrobe, although not the kind the Professor remembered the TARDIS being before. On one side, there was a single one door wardrobe, thin and tall, with a mirror in the front surrounded with a gold-like trim that stuck out from it making it give the mirror a sort of light up effect, like there were LEDs inside the trim. Next to the wardrobe section, attached to it rather, was a cabinet of sorts, with a desk (with an added protective slide over cover for it), up top were two door openings, the top cabinet, and then the bottom had a few perfectly aligned drawers leading all the way down, all with gold nameplates, however for the moment all of the nameplates were empty.

“The TARDIS never looked like that before…” Lily spoke in shock, seeing the TARDIS’s new look, all shined up and ready for adventure, as the Professor looked over the new design, running his hand over the desk covering, hearing the TARDIS let off a proud thrum echo from within the wardrobe.

“Her old shell was damaged…” He said, in awe at the TARDIS’s new design, checking a few of the drawers and the cabinet, which are full of odds and ends, all that could possibly be useful in a scrape, even as he lifted the desk covering, revealing a typewriter and an old corded phone on it, with the wire running right into the TARDIS, like it was grown right from the wood which had created the very temporal traveling machine. Very carefully, he lowered the desk covering, putting his hand slowly on the door, feeling the TARDIS thrum again. “She was hurt. Needed to make a new shell in order to rebuild herself.” He slowly smiled at her, looking right at the door, at the mirror which now adorned the entrance inside. “A beautiful exterior at that, my dear.” 

The TARDIS let out a thankful thrum, as the door creaked itself open, the light shining out from within the thin wardrobe section. He slowly peered inside, letting off a hopeful, proud, excited grin. “Look at you. Keeping up with the surprises, aren’t we?” With that, he turned back to Lily, offering his hand, which she took almost expediently, and the two looked into the TARDIS, before heading inside, the door slowly closing shut.

With that, the TARDIS let out a loud whirl, before taking off, taking with her The Professor, her pilot and one of her dearest friends, and one of his companions, another of her dear friends, someone who, once again, needed a new sight and look at life, Lily Winters.

The 11th Professor Adventures - Episode 2 - Reunion, Part 2

 Episode 2 - Reunion, Part 2

The Professor held up the reports next to the X-Ray, in near total shock of what he was seeing. Without the information gained from the report, it looked like just a simple brain scan, maybe an indention or two in the wrong place but could have been written off as a concussion or damage from a car accident or something similar. Then the eyes went to the report. The interior of the skull was completely dry. Nothing, no chemicals that supported life, or kept the brain running were within the skull. In fact, if the report was to be believed, it was like the skull itself had been turned into a vacuum state.

“Dear Guardians…” The Professor mumbled to himself as he eyed the report again, his eyes locked onto every word, every number that he could see. Each reading zero, or “unable to detect”.

The coroner shook slightly, trying to regain his composure but the Professor could tell, even not looking back at him, that his mind was trying to comprehend what was going on. “I saw the report, and I couldn’t believe it. Brain Chemicals? Adrenaline, Pure Adrenaline, just…” He muttered to himself again, the shock having obviously gotten to him.

“Can I take these back up with me, have a look at them in my office?” The Professor spoke. Best to keep with the facade, and not add to the older man’s troubles, hearing him as he slowly slid back into a chair, the creaks and groans from the stretching metal as the coroner settled into it. All he could do was nod at the request, his hands covering his face, his stomach twisting and turning in his gut.

He quickly stuffed both the X-Ray and the reports into his green jacket pocket, trying to be careful as to not bend the x-ray anymore than was necessary. He was feeling sick, doing so, holding that bit of information from the coroner, even if he couldn’t understand the specifics of how chemicals in the brain could be stolen to the point it was for that poor individual on the table. For him, for this moment, he had to find out the answer, so he headed back for the door out of the morgue, when he ran face to face in front of a police officer.

Rather, a police detective. A woman, in her late 40s, with slightly thinning black hair, with a long since burned in orange streak in it from a wild youth long since passed her by. Her brown eyes looked at his face with almost immediate recognition, although she tried to keep her cool, the Professor caught a quick smile forming on her old sun-kissed lips, cracked from age, but still, even with the slight wrinkles of age on her face and the general feeling of tiredness, she gave off some sense of adventure, even as the two looked direct at each other.

“I believe…” She spoke with a slightly authoritative voice, to hide her surprise and joy that was quickly becoming clear on her face. “That we both need a conference over that information, Doctor.” She looked him right in the eye. “After all, that is my case you’re walking off with vital evidence for.”

—-------------------

It annoyed her. Everything about this situation annoyed the red headed doctor, especially given how and what she needed to do in order to just get primitive pickings to her. However, having been here for a few months, she had learned a few things for example. Instead of preying or testing on the ones who came in at random, she learned to get the right age group she needed for her experiments, by using the young’s ability and desire to impress and show off. All it took was a little meddling, even with this planet’s primitive Artificial Intelligence systems, a pink pigmented paper, and the deal was made.

Next, she needed to get the situation out. Then came this individual she was now meeting with in the parking garage to the hospital, both of them bound up in coats as the cold air ran and searched to get to any bare skin that it could, searching for warmth. A primitive punk in their own right, all she could see is the big sunglasses that adorn their face, and a mask that still was unable to hide the frosty air coming from it.

“You got the goods?” That was another thing that drove her mad about this individual, the way they talked, cutting out verbs and vowels and speaking almost in tongues, it drove her mad just standing here with them.

“They are in my office, as usual.” The red haired doctor spoke back to her young friend. “And might I add just how dangerous it is for you to be meeting me out here in the open?”

“Just some insurance, doc, so nuthin’ cuts me out of this situation.” Internally she groaned. If only she didn’t- For the briefest of moments, her eye caught something, at the door, hearing for one of the nearby “automobiles” that earthlings used to travel around from place to place. Two people, two unique, and stand out people who would stick out from the crowd.. One of them was that infuriating police detective who drove her just as mad as the person before her, but the other one was what had her eye on more. The coat. The green coat, which clung to the man walking with the detective, with an odd expression upon his face. Her eyes sparkled, and a chuckle, a muffled chuckle anyway, hid within the scarf. Perhaps things got a lot more interesting after all.

“Doc?” The ruffian spoke back to her. “Doc, ya hearin’ me?”

She looked to the now-useless man before her, the teenager ruffian, the now purely sack of chemicals and- Her mind then clicked into place. Every experiment, no matter how small, needs test subjects to prove a theory after all, especially one as important as Adrenaline rushes. Her ruby red lips smirked, as she offered the ruffian a hand. “I have been.” She spoke. “And I think for all the hard work you’ve done, you deserve a little…bonus, for helping me unload some of those papers.” Internally, she almost laughed, seeing the ruffian straighten up, taking the compliments right on the chin. Primitives are always easy to control, in one of two ways. Either by power and showing one’s control, or by flattering them with simple responses in order to get them to do what you wished.

So as she walked the ruffian into the hospital, she slowly put her hand into her pocket, feeling the needle she had at the ready, her ruby red lips curled into a tiny smile. Things just got a lot more interesting for her, as the doors shut behind the two.

—----------------

Some time later, the Professor and the female Traffic detective found themselves back in her precinct, back on HER home turf for a change. The common room wasn’t something to write home about, a large room about the size of a school gymnasium, full of desks from wall to wall, about 15 to 20, maybe more, with papers and filing cabinets and water fountains and coffee machines, it was like a writer’s room for a daytime soap opera, that’s not adding in the noises from drunken drivers at desks, computer hums, the old lights, barely any peace and quiet for anyone. Yet, shoved in the back of the room, at her own desk, the two found such a moment. The woman worked on her typewriter, writing out a report, taking a couple looks in the Professor’s direction as she worked, looking over the coroner’s report, to make sure her report was full and complete.

The Professor looked a little annoyed however at the situation, having spent some time now in what he felt was the hot seat. “Now l-”

She raised a finger to him to be quiet.

“Now wait-”

She raised another finger, pulling out a notepad and putting it between the two of them, and a pen at the ready, making a swirling motion around the room. Open ears. With that clear, she nods slightly, and with her other hand quickly writes down on the notepad. “Hello, Teach.”

The Professor slowly looked to the notepad, then to the woman, squinting his eyes, as he looked at her hair, and then her eyes. Those brown eyes, that spark something deep within his memory of a long time ago, of a much different man, a young man with long silver hair that slowly flowed from his head, and whose hearts beat out kindness with every skip, to relearn the emotion with full force, after everything the war had done to him, and after everything he did after the war to try and bury every wound that ached and burned within him. As the memories slowly came to him, she smiled slightly at him, looking around again to make sure no one else was watching them, as she wrote another line down on the paper.

“Everything alright?”

The Professor looked at her with genuine interest on his face. He knew this woman, he knew it, but given his recent regeneration, even if his mind was back together, it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack on trying to recall who, so his eyes slowly examined the desk before him, the older computer set up and at the ready to be used, the typewriter all ready and cleaned, obviously taken care of, like it was a familiar piece to her work, other odds and ends that one would expect, a name plate…Lily Winters. In bold, gold lettering, right on the desk before him, spoke the name of this woman. Lily Winters. Detective Lily Winters, Traffic Division.

His mind harkened back to the two companions he had when he was the kind young man, with silver hair that shone like shiny metal in certain lights. Back then, he never thought he would take on companions again, especially after his first attempts after losing one…hurt him, in far more ways than one could imagine. But, his hearts latched quickly onto two individuals who he met on his travels soon after he transformed into his Sixth face. One of which was a living scarecrow from a land of magic, who he had offered help to find what he was missing, and he never could figure it out, even when asked about it, he just knew that something was missing and wanted to find it somehow. It was this quest in which he found his own heart, compassion for the very creatures who he was built to scare away, and created for them when he finally made it home a sanctuary for them, a farm for them to be safe and merry to them.

A family to call his own.

As he looked at the nameplate on her desk, a memory struck him, of his other companion during that time, of a 16 year old rebel, who wanted an avenue of escape away from the toils of near modern day Earth, around the turn of the millennium, trying to find a way and find out just what type of person she wanted to be, and how she truly felt. 

He slowly turned to this woman, this female detective, and a grin slowly creeped across his lips, as the aura of recognition slowly came across his mind, to the point he didn’t even notice himself take the pin from the notepad and quickly write down the word “Lily?”

The female detective slowly nodded in response, giving back a small smile to her old friend, almost in shock at seeing him like this, her friend from so long ago reborn into this new face, with new clothes, everything different. She grinned, taking the pen and quickly wrote on the notepad. “I know you told me about how you change your face, but I never-” She paused a bit, still in a bit of a shock at seeing her friend after all these years. “It’s just so nice to see you.”

“How long has it been?” He quickly scribbled down in response.

“30 years, Teach.” She can see the shock on his face now, as she was writing the number down like some kind of host, or the woman who turned the letters on the Wheel of Fortune (Why she never even bothered to learn her name, well, she just never clicked with game shows, she found them to be too much like a scam, given where she had worked for so long), but now here she was, face to face with her best friend again, who quickly took another look around their surroundings, before looking back, and slowly pointing at her with disbelief. She chuckled, and nodded.

“Shocking choice of career, isn’t it Teach?”

“Am I still talking to the same Lily?” The two chuckled again at that response. “Forgive me, Lily, I understand we have to keep our conversation on paper, given, well, how insane it might sound to some of these people.”

“Insane?” She quickly scribbled. “Teach, whenever I have someone ask about Jack, I had to say it was someone in cosplay, or someone dressed up for Halloween!” She smiled a bit, feeling the picture she kept in her coat pocket for a moment, her old heart aching as her memories of her youth, traveling the Multiverse when she was a teenager with the man of kindness and the living scarecrow. “I’m already trying to be forced out after 25 years, that’ll just be the ticket for them to sign me out and go.”

“Forced out?” He looked at her with sad interest. “What do you mean, forced out?”

“After 20 years, Teach, they like to have new faces come in, and so they will try or do anything to make you retire and take the pension and head out.” She looked at him, giving him a slight smile to cheer him up, as she ripped off the page, and quickly folded it into her desk. “But enough about that, what brought you here, Teach? What made you so scared about these reports?”

—-----------------------

The sounds of the heart monitor nearly drove her mad, as she watched her newest test subject with interest. Having marked the hospital room with a quarantine sign, here the red haired doctor could have perfect silence in testing her newest test, that is, given the loud beeping of that archaic contraption she is forced to use along with whatever she happened to have on her person.

Laying on the hospital bed, hooked up with enough machines he could have been confused with the six million dollar man, was the ruffian who not even a few minutes ago was a crucial part in her plan for chemical collection. Well, that was, until she saw the man with the green coat with the detective leaving, anyway. Now, his usefulness is that of a different shade, a different purpose to his life, that just might be able to solve both her experiment, and that damn problem before it even gets off the ground. With the flick of her wrist, she unsheathes another syringe, full of adrenaline chemical, mixed with a few more chemicals of her own devising, and slowly injected it into the ruffian’s vein in their neck, as she watched the heart monitor momentarily spike, before returning to normal, a grin forming across her ruby red lips as she checked her glass screen device, watching the brain activity.

“Malleable, and useful, as usual, Earthlings.” She said with a slight pause, watching the activity chars go wild as the now 3rd dose of adrenaline hit the brain, making it all light up on overdrive, the smirk on her face getting wider and wider. “A perfect use for Golem-like creation, had I gained the full marks I needed, however, this shall suffice for now.” With that, she slowly leaned down next to the ruffian’s right ear, putting her mouth close enough so there would be no doubt in them hearing her commands.

“There is a man that endangers our work.” The ruffian’s eyes snapped open, bloodshot and crazed, but his mouth looked almost glued shut, staring blankly into the ceiling with a wild expression, his fingers having clawed up, gripping tight onto the hospital bed’s mattress. The animal instinct had taken over, and all that remained within the mind of the ruffian was now that of the hunter’s instinct. The red haired doctor grinned with delight at seeing this. Of course it was a little butchered, nothing like she had hoped, but this was her first test run, and she had a lot more to test, so seeing how they reacted to each and every sound, watching its head twitch to the beeps on the heart monitor, gave her a sort of proud ecstasy building in her cold, calculating hearts. “He wears a green coat, as dark as the forest leaves. He seeks to ruin our work. He must be stopped, by any means necessary. Do you understand?”

The creature she had created let out an animalistic snarl, saliva forming fast on the once glued lips, its teeth bare to the elements, grinding against each other as it clawed and tore at the hospital bed’s mattress, digging their fingers deeper and deeper within the mattress. She almost laughed, seeing the results of her experiment so clearly on the Earthling, as she slowly stepped back, to give it some room, before pointing to the window. “Now go.” She said with deep authority in her voice. “Hunt the green man, and his friend.” She stared at the creature as it leaped to the floor, snarling and growling, its mind reverting back with every moment, turning more and more into a sort of feral creature with each passing thought. The red haired doctor, however, looked annoyed at her new creature not hearing her order. “HUNT!” She yelled out, and that time, the creature responded, rushing for the window and crashing its was through, full force and balled up, before hurrying out into the small city like some kind of rabid animal, sniffing the air as it ran. Slowly, the red haired doctor walked to the window, watching it run out of view, before letting herself indulge with a little chuckle. 

—--------------------

With the medical reports sprawled out on Lily’s desk, the picture became quickly clear, thanks to the help of a lamp the Professor found crammed into one of the closets lining the common room’s walls that weren’t full of posters and pictures and gods knows what else over nearly 45 years of use. On that lamp, taped carefully as to allow them to see most of it with angled lighting, was the X-Ray the Professor took with him when he took the reports and headed out of the morgue with quickened expediency.

“Drained…” That’s all Lily could mutter as she looked over all of the records, reading each one in her head, running her finger down each one to make sure she was seeing things correctly. Zero. Zero. Unable to Verify. Too small to count. Each verdict, each test that read like that gave Lily more and more goosebumps down the back of her neck, working in tandem with the colder and colder shiver that was working its way down her spine. “How can someone be drained of their brain chemicals and show no damage in the X-Ray?”

“She always was like that, especially after the war…” The Professor’s voice was more colder as his eyes are locked onto the X-Ray, seeing the small tell-tale signs of puncture into the skull, the iv needle holes that unless you were specifically looking for them and knew what you were looking for, they would simply be passed off as ink smudges or shadows on the X-Ray. He slowly took a couple post-it arrows, and posted them to point at the two holes on the top of the skull, feeling sick every moment he continued to look at the shimmering photo, before his eyes finally drifted away and he turned his attention back to Lily.

“She?” She asked The Professor, seeing his disgust in his face as he tried not to look at any of the papers on her desk.

“Ushas.” The Professor spoke with such authority, an authority which she had not heard before come from his voice, the deep seeded anger and contempt for what he had seen in these reports, sparking memories of long ago he would rather not remember with present company, especially seeing in her face how much she was worried, although if it was entirely aimed at him, or if some of that worry was about the situation unfolding on these pieces of paper before them was unknown. “You would know her by a different name, and a different face from long ago, long before the war corrupted her way of thinking and her styles of experimentation.” He cleared out his throat by coughing a bit, just so he can whisper even more softly. “You would know them as the Rani.”

“The…” Lily’s eyes ballooned. “The Rani…The woman who had Jack all those years ago?”

It was a long time ago, one of their first adventures together, when the Professor had discovered that, like he himself had found safety from beyond the confines of their home universe, so too did the Rani, although while the Professor learned, studied, and helped the people he came across, all the Rani could see was new avenues of experimentation and modification through genetics and chemistry. It was a freak meeting and eventual capture that led the silver haired man and the teenage rebel to meet the living scarecrow, and it was this meeting that gave the Professor the first tastes of both friendship and family, helping them escape while hoping to stop the Rani’s mad dash across the multiverse searching for new subjects and avenues of science to explore.

Sadly, as the Professor’s eyes slowly rose up to see that X-Ray again, and the medical reports scattered all across his old friend’s desk, the deep, deep sense of dream hit him all at once all over again. “The very same.” He spoke in a somber tone. “But long after the war had gone and done it’s work to her.”

“The war?” Lily spoke, looking at her old friend with sorrow, genuinely sorry about the next question she had to ask. “You mean the…”

He nodded in response, his eyes starting to glaze slightly over, the thousand yard stare settling in, as the memories came back to him, or rather, the stories of what he was told about her and what he could gather since their last encounter. 

“You met an incarnation of her from before the war. Before the war, she only took just the right amount she would need, you see, to hide any sort of evidence that she would be there at all, Just a chemical or two, spread out, and hid amongst the populace until she could take off and got bored.” He then slowly picked up one of the medical reports, specifically the one which ran the scans on the poor individual’s cranial cavity. “The War changed her. Made her far more bolder. She no longer hid her activities. Hell, some of the horror stories about the war…” He shook his head, not wanting to get off track, and from what he could tell from Lily’s face, it was best not to scare her more than what needed to be. “She stockpiled. Took everything she could on the possibility she would need something to use.”

“But why?” Lily asked, trying to keep her voice down. Even though over 30 years had past, here she was, like she was young again, like on a science fiction show talking about aliens from other planets and stolen body chemicals, gadgets and things and who knew what else would pop out of the woodwork. She was not a simple 25-year Traffic Division detective, she was once again a fascinated youth about the life her friends lived. “Why do this, and how would she stay hidden?”

“She would probably use a disguise here to keep herself at least somewhat hidden. While she had changed in this manner, she is known still in some circles as a Master of Disguise, as to hide from prying eyes while she collected what she needed.” He saw the lightbulb click right over Lily’s head as she spoke. The Professor raised his eyebrow, confused, as she quickly opened the desk’s middle drawer and pulled out fast the old driving permit, the fake, the very thing that started her down this case which led to her reliving her past. She almost felt sick now, holding it in her hands, as she slowly laid it down in front of the Professor. 

“We’ve been tracking some low level rings, using these, giving them to teenagers…” She spoke softly, looking to her old friend as he took the paper and examined it, she noticed almost immediately that he kept tossing it back and forth like he was playing an internal game of hot potato, like the paper was as hot as a pizza straight from the brick oven.

“This should not exist here.” He spoke again, with a little anger undercutting the words. “You can just feel it, not even reading it, feels off…” He looked to her, slowly putting the paper down, and taking her hand, to comfort her. “Has anyone gotten hurt from this?”

“A lot, kids who get them think the moment they’re behind the wheel, the knowledge will have struck them and they would be perfect drivers.” She slowly looked down at the paper again, the phony driver’s permit. “All of them end up in the hospital…”

The silence was deafening.

A bombshell, a large rock dropped in the pool and the shockwaves bouncing every which way, as the realization slowly fell onto both of their faces.

“The Hospital…” Lily said first, her eyes ballooning once again.

“What better place to get chemicals than right under the noses of everyone…” The Professor looked at her with a somewhat shocked expression plastered right across his face. “Hide out amongst the doctors and get the ingredients she requires right from patients and no one would be the wiser…”

Lily slowly looked at her friend, before quickly standing up, dusting herself off and quickly collecting the papers back into a folder, before slipping it under her arm. “We have to stop her, Professor, who knows what else she could do if left alone, the people stockpiling into those hospital rooms…”

Meanwhile, while the two talked inside the police precinct, that unknown variable that had Lily terrified, the creature the red ha- no, the Rani had created, had finally found the scent of the one who wanted to harm or ruin their master’s work. With a snarl, he watched from the window, mostly hidden away, as the two darted for the parking lot, the front door. This was its moment. It quickly snarled and growled, hurrying into one of the nearby bushes with a sort of malevolent intent plastered all across its face, as it sniffed the air for the scent, and waited for the green coat to arrive.

Each second made it grow more and more frustrated, would it have to enter the building to find the prey? Eventually, it showed itself fruitful, as the entrance opened, and the scent was massive. He was leaving. With one good leap, and all of the rage building further and further within its rapidly racing heart, beating like a wild tiger just about to pounce on its prey. Just when the scent became unbearable, he leaped out of the bushes and pounced.

All that his ears could hear, in that moment, was the bloodcurdling scream that reverberated through the air.