* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 The Doctor flicked the dematerialisation switch.

 The TARDIS screamed.

 So did Grace.

 The TARDIS was a part of Grace

 DONG

 Grace was a part of the TARDIS

 DONG

 If anything happened to the TARDIS something happened to Grace.

 DONG

 If anything happened to Grace something happened to the TARDIS

 DONG

 If anything happened to Grace, she screamed. She had a large mouth.

 DONG

 If anything happened to the TARDIS, it rang. It had a large bell.

 "The Cloister bell !" the Doctor gasped. He immediately pulled a red lever. This contraption immediately stopped the TARDIS from materialising, in mid-flight. It also forced Grace Holloway to the floor, or rather the rough ground, of the Matrix.

 Grace fell to the ground as the rolling clouds of beautiful countryside sped past her.

 "But why's the Cloister Bell going off? It only goes in the gravest of emergencies!" Dessia screamed.

 "Couldn't you think of a more original way of screaming that?!" screamed the Doctor.

 "Don't annoy her Doctor, she's none too friendly," Drax informed the eccentric Time lord.

 "Look , Dessia, I know we went on that camping trip together on Thros-Alpha-Beta 2, but that doesn't mean you can order me about, armed or unarmed," the tired traveler told her.

 As Grace looked up she saw a large white rabbit. After all that had occurred to Grace that day, she thought there would be no harm in talking to a rabbit.

 "Excuse me," Grace said. She wasn't quite sure how you address a rabbit.

 "No time for that," the rabbit shouted. "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date."

 "If only I knew that important date when Givenchy started the experiments..." the Doctor told the Renegade crowd.

 Suddenly, the rabbit went up in a puff of smoke -- only to be replaced by a little girl.

 "Curiouser and curiouser," said the little girl.

 Grace was afraid to ask. "You must be Alice."

 "No," answered the girl.

 "Who are you, then?"

 "I am," she said proudly, "I am... er...well ... I don't actually know exactly who I am."

 Grace let out a little chuckle. "How can you not know who you are?" she asked.

 "I've forgotten, that's all."

 "I suppose you've just come back from Oz, too," Grace joked.

 "Oz, never went there. Where is Oz ?"

 "Oz... Didn't your parents..."

 "PARENTS?!" she interrupted by screaming.

 "You know, the story of the dog Toto, and Kansas, with Dorothy in..."

 "Dorothy. That's familiar," the girl said, when suddenly some flying creatures came along, hundreds of them.

 Grace let out a vulgar phrase.

 "Ace !" Ace shouted.

 ***

 "Should I put the pan on for this little party? There's going to be some roasting," the Rani chortled to herself.

 "You won't get away with this!" the Abbot exclaimed.

 "Abacusundrevalojorephar, isn't it ?" the Master asked.

 "How dare you! A villain like you, address me by my title? I'll slaughter you!"

 The Abbot stepped forward to attack the Master, but the Rani got to him first, and threw him on the pile of logs the Chattermalians had prepared.

 "Oh, I do like fires, don't you, Rani?"

 They both laughed maniacally. The other members of the party looked on, terrified.

 ***

 Anna and Crispin had carried on looking round Gallifrey. It was quite a place. In fact, it was such a great place that it didn't even surprise them when they walked along a corridor only to find a blue swirling mist in the middle of it.

 "Some kind of alarm system," the boy said.

 "Better go the other way." Anna said.

 They both turned the other way.

 Mr. Time Storm told Givenchy, "They will do." A few seconds later, Anna and Crispin were in Mr. Time Storm's lair.

 ***

 "There's nothing *we* can do but sit and wait," the Doctor *ordered* Dessia.

 "There must be something!"

 "No."

 "It's always like this, isn't it? On the camping trip in the old times, you always had to be the big man, you always had to be the leader."

 "Dessia!" the Doctor screamed.

 If you have never seen Time Lords scream at each other before, with you as the witness, you have never felt real pain. Drax, being a Renegade, had never seen such an argument as Dessia and the Doctor were having at the moment.

 ***

 The Abbot continued to be loaded onto the firewood until he was strapped into the Master's special gear that the Renegade had in his TARDIS. The Rani took a match..

 "I love these primitive methods," the Rani said.

 She lit the fire, but as she was doing so, the Master struck her down.

 During the Dessia V. Doctor fight/argument, for no particular reason Dessia just fell down onto the floor.

 "Dessia!" the Doctor screamed. She was unconscious.

 The Rani was unconscious. The Abbot flung himself out of the straps and looked the Master in the eye.

 "Why ?" the Abbot asked.

 "I'm a nice kind of guy," the Master said.

 The Abbot flung himself to his knees before the Master.

 "Kill me now !" the Abbot yelled.

 "WHAT?" the Master asked incredulously.

 "I am damned if I'll live in the debt of someone as evil and corrupt as you; you kill all that's good, and you have already created all that is evil. I have a strong hatred for you, more so then anyone else. I don't like the Daleks but I don't hate them; at least they are a tiny bit rational. They have logic. You ? Quite frankly, you're illogical and stupid."

 "Why, thank you. Quite a touching speech, if I say so myself," the Master said. "Now allow me to explain. You have people in your mind who are quite useful to me... and I'm going to take them." To match actions to words, he went for his pocket and took out a Murandering Greanal Matrix Spieleravawenr.

 "No, not the Murandering Greanel Matrix Spieleravawenr Version 2?!"

 ***

 The Doctor was explaining to Drax what Dessia had been talking about, when she stretched her arm up from the floor and pressed the Materialisation Circuit. The TARDIS didn't recognise the hand, and so forced all the occupants to the floor. The Doctor un-un-regenerated; it was very quick and easy. When you regenerate into a regeneration that has occurred before, there is no trouble at all. Drax looked up as they were being flung around the TARDIS.

 ***

 The evil birds had Ace and Grace tied together and were about to make a nice juicy meal, when suddenly they were transported off the scene to the Panopticon.

 ***

 Ace appeared in the Panopticon with the Master, the now conscious Rani, the Abbot, Romana, Andred, and straight after they exited the TARDIS, the Doctor, Dessia and Drax.

 Dessia and the Rani noticed each other and flung themselves at each other.

 "You know each other?" shouted the Doctor to the Rani, apparently not at all surprised that all these people were here.

 "I suppose you could say that, Doctor," the Rani said.

 "Or rather we *are* each other. I am the Rani's first regeneration," Dessia said.

 "There is some good in us all Doctor, even me," the Rani said.

 "I've heard it all before. Where's Grace?" the Doctor asked Ace.

 "You didn't keep it open long enough , Professor."

 Then it sunk into the Doctor. "Ace! I thought you'd joined the mercenaries."

 Ace walked over to him. "I did, for a while, but then I changed my mind." She made a thrusting motion with her hand. "I got bored, Doctor. You make me sick, fighting for good. I've got a new Master now." She pointed to the Time-Lord owning that title, who thought this was hilarious.

 The Master had changed Ace. The Master had done something to Ace.

 Ace had done something to the Doctor. The Doctor fell to the floor, a knife in his back.

 At the same time, Grace was being attacked by giant birds, and Crispin, Anna and Givenchy were all working for a mysterious force.

 And the Doctor was out of play...

 To Be Continued....