The saucer arrived at a spaceport near Olympus Mons. Amy was surprised at something. “…Doctor, how are we breathing and walking like we’re on Earth?” she asked. “I thought the air was different to Earth and the gravity’s supposed to be lighter.”
“A combination of technology and something that people like you and Bugs tap into,” replied the Doctor.
“What’s that?”
“Cartoon physics, the reason why you can pull your hammer out of thin air.”
“Earth Creature and extra-temporal friends,” greeted Marvin as he arrived with two lizard people. The Doctor goggled.
“…You stole their armor!” she hissed. “The Ice Warriors place a lot of honor in their armor and you stole it!”
“Those are Ice Warriors without armor?” asked Amy.
“Yes, and Marvin’s playing with fire!” replied the Doctor.
“I have my means of keeping these Ice Warriors on a leash,” dismissed Marvin. “Now, to finally clear my view of Venus! Warriors! Ready the Illudium Q-39 Explosive Space Modulator!” A massive cannon rose from the floor and was aimed into the Martian sky. Marvin carefully adjusted the cannon and centered Earth in the targeting lens. An Ice Warrior then handed Marvin a red stick of dynamite. Marvin inserted the explosive into the end of the cannon with the fuse sticking out, then pulled out a lighter. He had a bit of trouble getting the lighter to light. “Oh, drat this lighter! It’s so stubborn!” he grumbled. “I could pinch it!” A flame then appeared. “Oh goody! Everyone, plug your ears and close your eyes! It’s going to be loud and bright!” Everyone except the Doctor and her friends did so. Bugs licked his fingers, then extinguished the fuse, then twisted the dynamite out.
“Come on! We gotta scram!” hissed Bugs. The Doctor and Amy nodded and followed him, leaving all the Martians assembled still with their eyes closed and their ears plugged. Marvin then blinked.
“…Where’s the kaboom?” he asked. “There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!” He then spotted where the explosive should have been. His eyes bugged out when he realized what happened! “The Illudium Q-39 Explosive Space Modulator! The Time Lord and her friends have stolen the Space Modulator!” He pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Delays, delays!” he grumbled as he made his call. “…Gossamer, there is an Earth creature with a Time Lord and her companion from the future at liberty within the base and carrying the Illudium Q-39 Explosive Space Modulator! Return them and the explosive to me and I shall reward you with that spider goulash you like so much!”
“All right, Doc! What’s the plan?!” asked Bugs.
“Well, obviously,” replied the Doctor, “we have to keep Earth from being blown up so Amy can be born five billion years after Earth’s natural death. We also need to free the Ice Warriors and get Marvin and his ilk off this planet. Too many things happening at once!”
“We’ll have to split up somehow,” muttered Amy. The Doctor skidded to a stop when she saw a pair of Ice Warriors, one male and one female. She goggled in surprise.
“…I recognize that face!” she said. The male Ice Warrior looked.
“A new slave?” he muttered, his spirit broken.
“…I recognize that voice!” whispered the Doctor. “You remember, sir? On that sub? 5,000 years in the ice? You and I stared each other down in that mad state.”
“…It cannot be!” realized the Ice Warrior man. “Doctor?!”
“Grand Marshal Skaldak,” replied the Doctor. “By the moons, I honor thee.”
“You know this guy, Doc?” asked Bugs.
“Sovereign of the Tharseesian Caste and Vanquisher of the Phobos Heresy,” replied the Doctor. “He is THE greatest hero the Ice Warriors have ever produced! …Who is she?”
“The woman with me?” asked the old Ice Warrior. “…She is the Empress’s daughter, Princess Taxona.”
“Taxona?!” gasped Amy. “…Now we REALLY need to save the Ice Warriors!”
“Why bother?” asked the young Taxona.
“Because we’ve seen your future,” replied the Doctor. “And it is an honorable and glorious one for not only Mars, but the entire solar system.”
“…We break the chains?” asked Taxona.
“Yes. But we need to rearm the Ice Warriors,” replied the Doctor. “Skaldak, Taxona, do you know where your armor was stashed? Or if they were destroyed?”
“Marvin and his ilk couldn’t destroy our armor,” replied Taxona, “so he displays them in the lower gallery.”
“Be warned, Doctor,” said Skaldak, “there is a monster lurking around down there that guards the place. Marvin calls it Gossamer.”
“Gossamer?” asked Bugs. “Big hairy monster with sneakers and bad fingernails?”
“That’s him,” replied Skaldak.
“We gotta split up,” muttered Amy.
“…All right, here’s what I’ve got,” said the Doctor.
Amy ran through the lower levels, trying to find the gallery where the armor was stashed. She barreled down a corridor, then skidded to a stop when she saw a trapdoor open ahead of her! Her toes were just hanging over the edge of the hole as she quickly regained her balance. She looked down to see strange monsters snapping like starving alligators in a moat! Amy clasped her hands in prayer, thanking Chaos that she was blessed with good brakes as she backed up. Her progress backwards was halted by something…furry. She then noticed that the shadow being cast was bigger than her! She looked up into the eyes of a monster that had red-orange fur all over the body, burly arms with ugly fingernails, sneakers, and angry eyes! The fur covered its mouth. “…G…Gossamer?” asked Amy. The monster nodded. “Hoo boy! Think fast, Amy!” She then turned fully to face Gossamer. “Sweet Chaos, what is that smell?! It’s coming from your feet!” Gossamer blinked in confusion, then pulled one of his sneakers off and sniffed inside.
“WHOOO!” he yelped, realizing that she was right! Amy immediately sat Gossamer down in a chair and began giving him a pedicure. As she rubbed a pumice stone over Gossamer’s feet, Amy spoke as if she were a salon worker.
“Such an interesting monster you are!” she said. “My stars, if an interesting monster can’t have an interesting foot care routine, then I don’t know what this world is coming to! In my business, you meet so many interesting people! But the most interesting people are the monsters!” She finished rubbing the stone over his feet and getting rid of the dead skin. “Now let’s give our feetsies a little wash!” She brought out a dish of water. Gossamer dipped his feet in…then the mousetraps in the dish snapped shut on his feet
“EEEYYYOOOWW!” screamed Gossamer. Amy took advantage of Gossamer’s predicament to escape. After running down a corridor for a while, Amy saw a sign. It read “Lower Gallery. Do not use the display pieces to rearm the lizards.”
“…No way are they really in there,” said Amy in disbelief. She tried the handle. …The door wasn’t even locked. “…Complacency or a trap?” Amy looked inside to see various suits of Ice Warrior armor and a big red button that read “Lizard Armor Recall.” She decided pressing the button from a distance would be a good idea, so she summoned her hammer and threw it at the button. …The suits then teleported and she could hear happy Ice Warrior roars from far off in the mines of Olympus Mons. “…Complacency!” cackled Amy. “No wonder Bugs beats him so often!” She pulled out a comms unit the Doctor had constructed. “Doctor, Bugs, this is Amy. Did you hear those roars?”
“More than that,” replied the Doctor. “Skaldak and Taxona just slipped into their suits. They’re ready to go on your signal, Bugs.”
“That might be a problem,” said Bugs. “Marvin’s just watered his instant Martians. I’ll have to disguise myself somehow.”
“…You know about that show Daffy made about him in the 24½th Century?” asked the Doctor, shuddering at the unfortunate butchering of a century’s name.
“You mean Duck Dodgers? That old Cartoon Network show? What about it?” asked Bugs.
“The Martian Leader there is real.”
“…I see what you’re saying, Doc! Give me a sec!”
“What is taking so long?!” Marvin complained to one of his Instant Martians, a green, bird-like creature. “Can’t you capture an Earth Creature?!”
“This Earth Creature displays a level of intelligence not usual to the rest of the planet,” replied the Instant Martian.
“Sir!” called another Instant Martian. “We just received a transmission! Her Majesty is here!”
“The Queen?!” yelped Marvin. “Roll out the carpet now! Royal Guard, fall in!” The Instant Martians lined up as a carpet rolled out from the door. The door opened and in stepped Queen Tyr’ahnee Mirkin, the Ruler of Mars. She had the Egyptian-style royal clothes, inky-black body, and the transparent purple skirt of the Martian Queen, but something seemed off. No matter. Marvin had other things to tend to than oddities. “Your Majesty!” greeted Marvin. “Welcome home! I trust your mission was successful?”
“Given what I heard was happening to my planet,” hissed Tyr’ahnee, “I had to leave the mission’s cleanup in the care of the commander I took. What is happening? Why are the Ice Warriors’ suits missing from the lower gallery?! And why is Venus still obstructed by Earth?!”