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Written by Jay McIntyre, WWWed by Lith.
Archived at http://www.afn.org/~afn20039/ .
PART ONE
Dr. Forrester turned, fuming, to Frank. Having just learned of Joel's escape (thanks to Frank's culpability), he was not pleased.
"Frank, your butt has an appointment with my towel in a minute!" Forrester exclaimed, fuming with rage. He was too busy lambasting Frank to notice that, on the scanner, another object struck Joel's escape pod, and that the two fell as one towards the earth.
Joel looked on mournfully as the hexfield viewscreen closed for the last time over Crow, Gypsy, and Tom. Somehow they had engineered his escape--he wasn't quite sure how, but now he was free. Perhaps he could get some of his old friends in high places to bust Dr. F, and bring down the Satellite of Love. He looked out the viewport, and was astonished to see a blue oblong box spinning towards him.
In the TARDIS, Ace flounced into the control room. "We'll, that whole Beckettboy mess is squared away, Professor!" she proclaimed cheerily.
The Doctor was under the console, effecting some kind of repairs. His muffled reply was bitter. "It would've been done sooner, Ace, if you hadn't let the Master in the TARDIS!"
"At least we knew where he was!" Ace shot back.
"Yes, he was here, in my sanctum sanctorum! I shudder to think of it! I feel like the place was tainted by his presence!"
"Not like you to be so melodramatic, Professor," she retorted.
He slid out from under the console, sat up, and stared at her with those alien eyes of his. "I've always felt that one day the Master would challenge me in here, in my TARDIS. I didn't want it to be today."
"Why do you think that?" she asked, still unsettled by his alien stare.
He shrugged. "Just a feeling."
She knew better than to challenge his intuition. So instead she changed the subject. "What are you doing under there, then?"
He sighed. "Repairing the dimensional stabilizers. Materializing the TARDIS inside itself damaged them somewhat. I've had to disconnect them and the HADS in order to do it."
Ace frowned. "Isn't that dangerous?"
The Doctor gave her a snaggle-toothed grin. "Not rrrrrrrrrrrrealy," he trilled, "seeing as were safely materialized in Earth Or--" he was interrupted by a jarring crash that sent them both flying into the wall.
Joel tried to leap backwards as the blue box hit his escape pod, but there was no place to leap backwards to in the confined space. So the TARDIS burst through the side of the console and conked him on the head. The two craft, united by chance, plummeted Earthwards.
In the TARDIS, all kinds of alarms were going off. The console room was vibrating as the Doctor staggered back towards the console. Hurriedly, he reconnected the Dimensional Stabilizers.
"Why don't you just dematerialize?!?" Ace shrieked.
"Because if I don't reconnect everything first, the TARDIS could overload. I don't fancy it blowing up over Australia, do you?" he bellowed back. Without waiting for an answer, he reactivated the HADS. It sparked nastily, knocking him backwards.
The good news was that this caused a bubble of transdimensonal energy to envelop the TARDIS and the escape pod, protecting them from damage and sealing in the atmosphere, which prevented Joel from asphyxiating. The bad news was that it let other dimensions begin to influence both ships.
The Maxx was brooding in the Outback. He had just watched Julie leave him and Sarah, heading for parts unknown. Gone had said this would be a good thing, but Maxx wasn't about to trust Gone.
"This is bad," brooded Maxx, talking out loud to himself again, "without Julie, the Outback will die. Why did she leave? I need her! I need someone here!"
Just for a second, something blue appeared in the sky of the Outback, then it vanished. Maxx didn't notice, he was too busy wallowing in self-pity.
"What happened?" Ace screamed.
"I don't know! It was almost like we were somewhere else for a second!" the Doctor yelled back. He staggered towards the console, but was being held back by some force. "The HADS is malfunctioning, or it would've extricated us from this mess by now!"
"So what do we do?" Ace hollered back.
"Must...reach...console," the Doctor gasped, behaving like every B-Movie hero he'd ever seen. If it worked for them, maybe it would work for him.
It didn't. The TARDIS and the escape pod crashed to Earth.
Dr. F turned back to the console. "I've got to rescue Joel," he proclaimed with false heroism, and hit the trusty Alt Function 7. It didn't work. "Oh no," he whined, "He's landed safely in the Australian Outback!"
Maxx was still brooding out loud. "The Outback needs someone! *I* need someone!"
In the Australian Outback, the TARDIS and the escape pod lay in a smoking crater. Neither was damaged, thanks to the ball of transdimensional energy that still surrounded them.
In the TARDIS, the HADS sparked again, overloading the Dimensional Stabilizers. The ships vanished from Australia. Dr. F, who was eyeing Mike with a predatory eye, was too busy to notice.
"I need someone to live in the Outback!" The Maxx shouted. There was a rippling effect in front of him, and his eyes widened in hope. "Julia?" he breathed.
But it was not Julia. Instead, a Blue box and a rinky-dinky escape pod prop from a tv show lay in front of him.
"Crap," Maxx whispered...
Maxx bounded down towards the strange thing. It seemed to be two things stuck together; one a blue box, the other a cheesy looking escape pod.
"Bad prop," Maxx thought aloud. "I'm sure I never saw it on Cheers. Even *their* budget could afford better. Box is nice though." He tried to approach the things, but there was this pretty orange-and-purple mottled glow around them. When he tried to pass through it, there was a nasty *TZZT* sound, and Maxx was knocked backwards. He was knocked out. Slowly, his body faded away, back into the real world.
Joel tried to get up, but his head hurt too much to move. Opening his eyes, he saw that there wasn't much room to move anyway. The blue box had seriously crushed the pod, giving him just enough room to sit up in. He tried it, his vision went double, and he collapsed back into unconsciousness.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor slowly came to. He sat up groggily, and looked around. The TARDIS seemed okay; all the lights were on, and the reassuring hum of the TARDIS interior was making it's usual calm harmonics, that Ace (and all of his previous companions) couldn't hear. Remembering her, the Doctor looked down, and saw her collapsed in a corner of the room.
Everything else was sprawled around too; it must've been a crash-landing, like on Lakertya. Remembering that, he stiffened, and put his hands to his face. It *seemed* the same, and his clothes still fit. But he wasn't sure if he had avoided regeneration or not. Shaking off his anxiety, he gently tweaked Ace's nose. "Ace?"
Ace groaned, and she sat up, eyes still closed. "Ooooh....Professor, what hit us?"
"I don't know. Look at me Ace," he said urgently. She opened her eyes blearily, and looked at him. She didn't get upset and ask who he was, so he felt reasonably sure he hadn't regenerated, but was still uneasy. "How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked her, waggling his left hand at her.
"Four," she mumbled, then held her head in her hands. "Never mind the dimensional stabilizers, what the TARDIS needs is a good set of shock absorbers."
He chuckled at that, and felt more relieved. But he had to know for certain. "Ace, do I look...different?"
She looked at him again, searchingly. Then she cracked a grin. "Well, your hat's gone, your hair's a mess, and you've got a nasty bruise on the left cheek, but other than that, you're all right." Then she frowned. "Why do you ask?"
He shook his head. "Never mind, just feeling nervous." he wasn't ready to explain to Ace just yet about the Time's Champion prophecy, or about the Ka Faraq Gatri. He hadn't molded her into his perfect soldier yet, and until he did, his secrets must remain his own.
But to his surprise, she looked uneasy too. "I know what you mean. I'm spooked, somehow. I've got this feeling, like when I found out that...Fenric had used me. I feel like we've really stepped in it."
The Doctor frowned, took internal stock, and was forced to agree. Not regeneration then, not yet. But a situation that could easily cause him to do so. It was not a good sign.
The Maxx woke up in the real world, quaking like a junkie. It hurt...it just hurt too much! "JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULIE!" he bawled. There was a flash...and he was back in the Outback. "Hunh?" he asked. Then he looked around. Everything was as it had been; the ships, the forcefield.
He approached it more cautiously this time, and poked at it with his left claw. It stung a little, but didn't knock him out. But it didn't go away, either. "Open Sesame!" he shouted at it, without any noticeable effect. He lumbered over to a rock a few meters away, and ripped it out of the ground.
It was a *big* rock, Maxx thought; it was probably big enough to squash many Iszes. He lifted it over his head, and hurled it at the forcefield.
The field flashed to white, and there was a loud *boom*, not unlike that made by a thunderclap. It blasted Maxx off his feet. He looked up, and through star-filled eyes, could barely see a wedge-shaped piece of the rock falling towards him. He rolled sideways, and it punched into the ground where he had been. It was smoking. Similar pieces were scattered about the countryside. "Crap," he whispered again.
The noise of the blast woke Joel up again. He didn't feel any better, but knew enough now to move more carefully. He kicked at the escape hatch, and clambered out of the top of the pod. All he could see was the purple and orange field; he couldn't see through it. He wondered what the heck was going on. Had the Mads captured him and this weirdo box in some kind of forcefield? He didn't know, and he wanted to find out. Clambering back into the pod, he began ripping apart wires and circuitry. "Time for an invention exchange," he muttered to himself.
Far away, but not too far, the disembodied head of Mister Gone was floating on top of a ball of the same purple-and-orange energy. A tall stranger in ornate dress stood beside him.
"The human from the satellite is attempting to breach the field," Gone noted in a scornful voice.
The stranger answered in a voice that sounded old and weary, but full of hatred. "He is extraneous; a useful tool with which I captured the Doctor. The Doctor is my concern, just as the Maxx is yours. The human can stay here and rot for all I care."
Gone grinned at that; his temporary ally was leaving too many loose ends, which Gone could exploit later. "Why do you still have the field around the ships, and around the TARDIS console? You do want the Doctor to come out, don't you?"
"The Doctor will come out regardless; he will want to know what is going on. The little busybody is more curious than a cat, and it will be his downfall. As for why the fields are still in place, you should appreciate the benefits of a meticulously laid out plan--and the rage you feel when your plan is meddled with. The last time I faced the Doctor, he cheated. But this time, he will play the game according to *my* rules!"
The Doctor and Ace heard the blast dimly inside the TARDIS. The Doctor raced over to the console to activate the scanner, but something was holding him back.
"What is it?" Ace asked.
"Some kind of force field, I don't know what type precisely," he was forced to admit. He was troubled by any agency that could activate a force field *inside* the TARDIS. His mind seethed with possibilities. Had the Black Guardian finally come for his revenge? Had Skagra escaped his prison? He didn't know, and he was determined to find out!
Maxx had watched the man come out of the pod, look around, and go back in; he obviously couldn't see through the field, as Maxx could. He wondered what the man was doing, and why he was in the Outback. Then he stiffened, for the man was coming back out again with a strange device.
Joel lifted the device out with difficulty. "My invention exchange this week, sirs," he grunted, "Is a force field dissipater, to break open this field you've trapped me in. It's time to stop playing nice-nice and take you guys down!" He slid down the side of the pod, hefted the dissipater, pointed it at the field, and pressed the activation stud.
Outside, Maxx bellowed with rage at the man and his weapon. "I am Maxx, ruler of this land! How *dare* you point a weapon at me! Coward!"
The stranger grinned evilly. "Now," he sneered, and with a gesture, dissipated the forcefield. Beside him, Gone's eyes glowed.
The forcefield vanished, and suddenly Joel was face to face with a big, buck--toothed, yellow-clawed, ugly purple monster. He thought that perhaps his invention had worked to well.
The monster stomped forwards and smashed the dissipater out of his hands with one devastating claw-strike. "You must be an agent of Gone! How many more will he send after me before I destroy him!??" roared the monster.
Joel's sleepy eyes opened wide. "Poopie!" he shouted, and turned and ran for his life. The monster lumbered after.
Inside the TARDIS, there was a brief sparkling around the console, which quickly vanished. The Doctor approached cautiously, then slammed his hand down on the viewer control. The viewer flickered on, showing a man being chased by a big purple monster.
Ace recovered first. "Never a dull moment with you, Professor," she smirked.
The Doctor's mouth was set in a grim line, but his eyes twinkled all the same. "Get your Nitro, Ace, we've got work to do."
Ace and the Doctor came out of the TARDIS. Ace was still shrugging on her knapsack as they came out, "How far are they?" she asked.
The Doctor, looking through what looked like a small telescope but was in fact much more technologically advanced on the inside, saw them and replied, "About 400 meters."
"We'll never catch them!" Ace whined.
"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Ace," the Doctor grinned, "for you see, from what little sensible information the TARDIS' scanners gave me, this is a realm of the subconscious. And my Time Lord mind can affect it to our benefit."
"You mean, you can just teleport us to them?"
"No, but I can speed us up, as it were. Take my hand." Ace did so and the Doctor began to run with an intense look of concentration on his face. Soon they were racing along at a ridiculously fast speed.
Elsewhere, Gone and his ally were viewing the situation with distaste.
"The Doctor is using his mind to affect this realm!" the stranger protested.
Gone grinned. "Let him. It will leave his mind vulnerable to my own manipulations."
"Don't underestimate the Doctor!" the stranger thundered. "He was already a formidable foe when last I faced him, and has grown much more experienced and cunning since!"
Gone looked thoughtful. "Then we should dump them all into your labyrinth as soon as possible, yes?"
The stranger grinned. "Exactly."
Joel was growing weary. The Maxx was gaining on him, and soon he'd catch him. Then it would be all over. Joel had expected to die on the Satellite of Love due to the Mads' experiments, or that the ship would burn up in re-entry. He never expected to die in a surreal dreamland at the hands of a big ugly purple monster. But life is funny that way.
He had been thinking too much, and hadn't noticed that he was running out of ground, too late, he saw the edge of the cliff he was about to fall off. He tried to slow down, but that brought the Maxx up behind him. Maxx took a swing a Joel with a claw. Joel tried to duck and stop at the same time, lost his balance, and fell off. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa--" Joel cried, then he hit bottom, and was knocked out.
Maxx raised his arms in triumph. "I am the Maxx! And I still rule this land!"
The Maxx was so busy celebrating his "triumph", that he failed to notice the Doctor and Ace coming up behind him.
Ace tapped the Doctor's shoulder. "Slow down, they've stopped!"
The Doctor opened one eye and looked at Ace with it. "What?"
"STOP!" she screamed, but she saw he wouldn't in time, so she let go of his hand. He looked round too late, and plowed right into the Maxx. The Doctor was knocked backwards, and the Maxx fell over the edge.
"Noooooooooooooo--" he got out before landing on top of the unfortunate Joel. Meanwhile, inertia carried Ace forward, and she tripped over the Doctor, and landed face first in the grass, just inches from the edge.
"Cruk," she muttered into the dirt.
The stranger looked at Gone with puzzlement, for Gone's eyes were closed and his teeth were bared. "What are you doing?" the stranger asked him.
"Keeping that imbecile Maxx in Pangaea," he hissingly replied through gritted teeth. "I need him here for once."
Maxx came to, somewhat surprised to find himself still in the Outback, and got up. Angry at the fool that had knocked him off the cliff, he began to climb back up it, using his claws.
Ace got up, looked over the edge, and saw the Maxx coming. "Double cruk!" she hissed, then turned to the Doctor. "Wake up, Professor, we've got big purple ugly trouble!" but the Doctor did not respond. "Doctor!" she hissed in his face, but even his "real" name produced no effect. "Triple cruk!"
"I think we need to shepherd them towards my labyrinth," said the stranger.
"Quite, " agreed Mr. Gone, "and I know just the trick." He muttered an incantation. Instantly, all the white Isz in the area were transformed into meat-eating black Iszes. With one mental command from Gone, they began to close in on the fugitives.
Ace was still trying to wake the Doctor, when she heard a *chunk*. Turning around, she saw the Maxx climbing over the edge of the cliff. "Quadruple cruk!" she snarled, and pulled a canister of Nitro Nine out of her knapsack. But before she could twist the cap, the Maxx stopped, looked past her with suddenly wide eyes, and muttered:
"A horde of black Isz! but what are they doing here?"
Ace turned round, and saw hundreds of little black things with sharp teeth that went "Meep" coming towards them.
"And of course," she said, "Quintuple cruk."
Ace chucked the can of nitro at the Iszes. It blew up in the middle of them, turning eight or nine of them into black gloop. It spattered their fellows, who seemed not in the least bothered. The remaining Iszes came on strong. She reached for another can, but Maxx charged past her, and started tearing into them with his claws. "No Isz can stand the might of the Maxx!" he bellowed.
"Smegging idiot," Ace muttered to herself, but he seemed to be holding the things off for the moment. She went over to the Doctor. "Wake up, Professor," she urged.
He groaned and sat up. "Two concussions in one day." he muttered. "This is not good."
(When they were to relate this story to Benny much later, she laughed at this point, and thought that the Doctor should've known better. He was not amused.)
"The monster thing is holding off the blobbies," she said urgently. "He calls himself Maxie or something like that."
The Doctor looked at the creatures thoughtfully. "Hmm. Some kind of converted vegetarrrrrrian species, looks like," he rolled.
"How d'you know that?" Ace wondered.
The Doctor waved a hand airily. "I've experience with these things, Ace. Anyway, it's simply a matter of concentrating my mind power to stop them." He grinned toothily at her, then got that look of intense concentration in his eyes again. His eyes squeezed shut. Ace could hear the Maxie-wotsit still shouting defiance at the blobs. The Doctor re-opened his eyes and looked at her. And the look in his eyes took Ace's breath away; she hadn't seen him this scared since...since she couldn't remember when.
"What's the matter?" she pressed him.
"My mind powers," he gasped, "they're being blocked!"
Now the stranger was concentrating fiercely, and it was Mr. Gone's turn to look on.
"Can you keep the Doctor from manipulating events here?" Gone asked him.
"If I know he's trying to, yes, " the stranger whispered without opening his eyes. "And once they get to the Labyrinth, which was constructed by me and my...minion, he won't be able to affect the environment."
Ace looked back. Maxieman or whatever was still holding the blobs at bay, but more of them were coming all the time. It was only a matter of time until he was overwhelmed. She turned back to the Doctor. "D'you think it's Fenric?" she whispered. She was deathly afraid that he had come back to use her again.
But the Doctor shook his head. "Fenric would be more subtle than this," he replied, "I'm still trying to work it out. Go help the...purple individual...deal with the creatures. I've got to find a solution." he began to delve into his pockets. Ace shrugged and turned away, tugging out a can of Nitro Nine.
Joel woke up at the bottom of the hill. His ribs hurt. He sat up slowly. The monster was nowhere to be seen, though he thought he could hear it shouting in the distance. He started climbing back up the hill, noting the strange handholds conveniently placed in it.
Ace chucked another can of nitro at the blobs. They spattered to bits.
Slashing through the things a few feet ahead of her, the Maxx looked back. "You fight well! You are a worthy ally of the Maxx!"
"Charmed, I'm sure," Ace muttered.
The Doctor was emptying his pockets. He fished out his second incarnation's recorder. "No, that won't do," he muttered. Then he came across his spoons. He smiled briefly, then with a sigh put them aside as well. At that point, Joel climbed up. "Ah good, young fellow." said the Doctor. "Perhaps you can explicate this strrrrrrrrrange chain of events?"
Joel looked at the odd little man for a moment, then replied, "I was escaping from a Satellite, don't ask me why, we don't have time. This blue box crashed into my escape pod."
"Oops," muttered the Doctor.
Joel blinked sleepily at him. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing, do go on." the Doctor gave him his toothy grin.
"Uh, right. Anyway, I woke up and this weirdo field was surrounding the box and my pod. I tried building a gizmo to short it out. Then this purple guy," he pointed at the Maxx, who was still slashing away, "broke the thing and started chasing me. I fell off that cliff, woke up and climbed back up. And here we are. Where is here, and who are you?"
"I'm the Doctor, the young girl throwing the bombs is Ace, and I'm just as much in the dark as you are as to what this place is. Perhaps our purple friend can explain the situation...if we survive."
"At least he's not Barney," Joel pointed out.
The Doctor snorted.
("Barney?" Benny would ask later. The Doctor and Ace assured her that she was better off not knowing.)
Ace was running out of nitro, and the beasties were still coming. The Maxx was holding his own, but there were simply too many of them. Deciding that she didn't want to run out of nitro in two adventures back to back, she reached deeper into her rucksack and pulled out an Omega-Powered Baseball Bat (TM Ben Aaronovitch and the BBC 1996, all rights reserved, blah blah blah yakety smakety). She got to swinging.
The Doctor crept up to the Maxx. "Ace, hold them for a moment." she nodded. The Doctor tapped Maxx on the shoulder. The Maxx turned around, claws dripping with Isz-goop, and stared at him. The Doctor raised his hat and trilled, "Grrrrreetings, I'm the Doctor, the girl with the bat is Ace. Who are you?"
"I am Maxx. Ruler of this land. And you are the fool that knocked me off the ledge." the Maxx glared at him through his mask's eyeholes. The Doctor returned the glare with his chilling alien stare, his blue eyes fading to grey, then to a purple shot through with orange threads. The Maxx, like so many before him, drew back from that stare. This little man scared him in a way Mr. Gone never had.
The Doctor's eyes returned to normal. "Just an accident, I'm sure you'll agree," he said, cheerily.
"Ur...of course," Maxx muttered.
"Vulcan...mind...meld," Joel whispered behind them sarcastically, in a fairly good Kirk impression. Both the Doctor and the Maxx looked at him and he shut up.
"And despite this young man's witticism, I'm sure he meant you no harm either. Would you care to tell your side of the story? But quickly, my dear Ace is badly outnumbered."
The Maxx stood sideways to the Doctor, with his head turned towards him, while slashing Isz with one claw. "Ace fights well. I was missing my Jungle Queen, Julia, when this blue box and this cheesy escape pod appeared in front of me. There was this field about them. The field vanished, and the dolt behind you was holding what I took to be a weapon. I destroyed it, and chased him. I knocked him off the ledge, you ran into me and I fell on top of him, climbed back up, and then the Iszes came."
Joel made no comment this time, but felt his sore ribs and winced.
The Doctor "hmmed" thoughtfully. "Some kind of dimensional transference. Right, we have to get away from these...Iszes, and quickly. I see they have no eyes. How can they detect us?"
An Isz landed on Maxx's shoulder, and he absently flicked it off. "In the more mundane plane known as Earth, they can only smell. But here, they can hear us as well, though they are too stupid to understand us."
The Doctor decided now was not the time to ask the Maxx about his own dimensional travails. He looked down at the spoons and the recorder, then his face lit up in a grin. "Tell me young man, are you familiar with the pied piper?"
"The name's Joel, and sure." then he looked at the instruments. "You can't be serious!"
"I'm quite serious Joel." the Doctor picked up the spoons.
"Roger Corman and Sandy Frank have conspired to take over my life," Joel muttered, but he picked up the Recorder and began to play. The Doctor counterpointed him with the spoons.
The Isz stopped charging, and made a collective "MEEP?" then they started following Joel and the Doctor as they lead them down the side of the hill.
The Maxx stared. Ace burst out laughing.
Gone and the stranger's reactions are, alas, unprintable.
"At least they're still heading for the Labyrinth," Gone managed eventually.
The stranger scowled, then popped the energy bubble that was levitating Mr. Gone's head.
PART FIVE
"Meep...meep...meep, meep, meep." The Iszes chanted as The Doctor and Joel led them on with their instruments. Ace followed after, laughing helplessly, while further behind, the Maxx trudged forward, not looking nearly so amused. The Doctor looked ahead, and saw that they were coming to a crevasse, a deep gouge in the land. There were trees growing out of it. While still keeping time with one hand, he pointed with the other. Between toots on the recorder, Joel nodded.
They reached the crevasse and stepped aside, while still playing. The Iszes continued forward, not noticing the crevasse.
"Meep...meep..meeeeeeeeeeee......" they cried as they fell, rank by rank.
"Wicked, Professor!" Ace exclaimed. "What now?"
The Doctor looked beyond the crevasse, and saw in the distance what looked to be a city. "Maxx, do you recognize that?" he asked, pointing to it.
The Maxx stared at it for a few moments. "No, I do not. Nor do I understand what it is doing in the land I protect."
"That's Prrrrobably the source of the trouble, then, and probably what brought Ace, Joel, and myself here," the Doctor said.
"Plot convenience theatre," Joel muttered.
"Only too true, I'm afraid," the Doctor agreed. "The enemy probably wants us to go there. But we have no choice. Is there any way around this ravine?" he asked Maxx.
"It would take many days," replied the Maxx. "But it is deep, and travelling through it is dangerous."
"Oh, I'm sure we'll manage. Danger's an old friend of mine." the Doctor said cheerily. Ace rolled her eyes at this, but got out her ladder and let it down into the depths.
Meanwhile, on the Satellite of Love, Mike Nelson lay unconscious in the docking bay. The rocket that had brought him there was already on it's way back to Earth. The three robots crowded over him.
"The new guy," said Crow and Gypsy together.
"Leave him here," said Servo, "He'll be awake soon enough." So they tromped out of the room, not noticing Mike fade away behind them...
The stranger's head snapped upwards, and he cursed. "I left the portal to the Satellite open, and now another human has fallen through it!"
Gone looked thoughtful. "Perhaps we can turn this to our advantage. Have your minion tie him up."
In the Labyrinth, Mike faded in again, still knocked out. Out of the shadows, a stooped, staggering figure limped towards him.
"The m-master wants you bound," said Torgo apologetically, and he began to wrap Mike in Christmas tree lights.
The ladder only reach about a third of the way down the crevasse. The Doctor, going first, was trying to find a handhold.
"Perhaps you should hurry them along," suggested the stranger to Mr. Gone, who smiled evilly.
A white Isz turned black, then charged towards the bag that Ace's ladder came out of, and knocked it into the crevasse. Ace, the Doctor, Joel, and the Maxx screamed as they began to fall...
