“I, Lord Hater,” began the skeleton, “planetary conqueror and number one superstar, hereby claim this planet and its famous Time Orbble Lake as mine, proving that I am the GREATEST IN THE-!”
“HEY, HATEY!” called Wander.
“…Ignore him, Hater!” Lord Hater growled to himself. “If you ignore him, he’ll go away!”
“That’s a rather lame way to solve your problems, Lord Hater,” remarked the Doctor.
“ARE YOU QUESTIONING ME?!” shouted Lord Hater. “…Wait a minute, who ARE you anyways?!”
“Oh, we met before,” said the Doctor. “That whole business with the Daleks and Lord Dominator and her modifications to the Movellan Virus?” Lord Hater goggled.
“How do YOU know the specifics?!” he demanded. “…Unless…Peepers!”
“Yes, Sir!” replied his right-hand man, Commander Peepers. He then pulled out a scanner and waved it over the Doctor. His singular eye widened. “Time Lord genetics confirmed, Sir!” reported Commander Peepers.
“Sir, that blue box the Doctor has is over here!” called one of the eyeball creatures, the Watchdogs.
“DOCTOR?!” yelped Lord Hater. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! WITH WANDER AGAIN?!”
“Well, I’m trying to get this young man back to his proper point in space-time,” replied the Doctor as she indicated Raz. Commander Peepers checked his scanner again, then his eye widened in surprise.
“Sir, that kid’s psychic readings are off the charts!” he said.
“His psychic powers are not your concern!” urged the Doctor.
“…Oh, aren’t they?!” chuckled Lord Hater as a wicked grin crossed his face. By now, the Doctor and her friends closed ranks around Raz.
“You’re not touching him!” declared the Doctor.
“Watchdogs, EYES UP!” ordered Lord Hater. The Watchdogs leveled their weapons at the group. “I don’t NEED to touch him to get him to come aboard! Just to be on the safe side, you’d better join him and enjoy your five-star suite in the brig while I clone his mind powers!”
“Ha! You don’t have that kind of technology!” cackled the Doctor.
“…So, I HAVE been wrong before,” remarked the Doctor when she saw the machine in Lord Hater’s ship.
“That’s gonna clone my psychic abilities?” asked Raz. “…Looks an awful lot like the Brain Tumbler.”
“With this machine, puny creature,” Commander Peepers said with pride, “we shall clone all psychic abilities and implant them into our test subjects!”
“Psychic cloning is against galactic law,” remarked the Doctor.
“I’M the evil overlord here!” retorted Lord Hater. “I’M the one that decides what is or isn’t legal!”
“Other powers made that kind of thing illegal because of the untold damage it does to both the psychic having their powers cloned and the subject that’s having those powers forcibly implanted into their own mind! It will KILL them! BOTH of them!”
“My science team’s already taking the necessary precautions!” dismissed Hater. “Watchdogs, throw them in the brig! Make sure everything is ready for the kid!”
“Lord Hater, Raz is ten!” protested the Doctor.
“Eleven, actually,” interjected Raz.
“Not the point.” The Watchdogs were set on obeying their master as they leveled their guns at the Doctor and her group.
Everyone was thrown into separate cells in the brig block. “…Well, ain’t this cozy,” grumbled Sylvia.
“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” Wander said to Raz. “Folks call me Wander.”
“Raz,” replied Raz. “Razputin Aquato. From Earth.”
“Never heard of it,” remarked Sylvia.
“It’s not a planet within this galaxy,” replied the Doctor as she fiddled with her cell’s force field. “Have to admit, Lord Hater’s a lot smarter than I gave him credit for.”
“What, for not only hiding the force field emitters,” said Tysar, “but taking your sonic screwdriver?”
“Yes, limiting my options,” remarked the Doctor. “Making me take longer to escape, that WILL put me in a panic…if the Skullship was running on top-of-the-line technology.”
“Yes, the power flow regulators aren’t very advanced,” remarked Tysar.
“Hater’s always focused on whether or not something is cool in his eyes,” said Sylvia. “So I’m not surprised to hear you say that.”
“Hm, primitive technology by anyone’s metrics,” said the Doctor, “but stubborn. …Actually, Raz, can you still use your powers? Simple telekinesis on the force field control panel should be sufficient.”
“Let’s see,” replied Raz. He held his hand to the side of his head, then concentrated. The control panel then sparked and the force fields vanished. The Doctor grinned.
“Rule one of containing a psychic!” she said.
“Always have something on hand to shut off their powers!” finished Raz.
“So what now?” asked Sylvia.
“Now I need to know what Hater’s plans are,” said the Doctor. “And, of course, get my screwdriver back.” She saw a console with a screen above it. “That might do it. Let’s see…password locked. Right then.” She tried the obvious password of “password” and all variations. “…No, looks like Hater’s not that stupid. …Wait, maybe something that strokes his ego.” She tried a variation of Lord Hater’s name and the fact that he considered himself the number one superstar. “…AHA!” she called. “Perfect!” She then called up the data of the mission to the planet. “…Hm…well, that WOULD be a prudent thing to do.”
“Doctor?” asked Wander.
“It seems Lord Hater, in a bout of paranoia, fears that Lord Dominator would use Time Orbble Lake to travel back to the past and undo her big defeat at his hands.”
“Well, you gotta admit,” remarked Sylvia, “losing to Hater would bruise anyone’s ego.”
“There’s something that just doesn’t add up, though,” remarked the Doctor. “Where does Raz fit into all this?” She triple-checked her research. “…Infernal cheek!” she muttered. “Raz was just a spur-of-the-moment plan!”
“Well, I guess I can be somewhat relieved,” remarked Raz.
“Doctor, what does it say about Hater’s machine?” asked Tysar.
“Haven’t found those files yet,” replied the Doctor. “Come on, come on! No, I don’t want to see tickets to Lord Hater and the Harbingers of Doom! No, the-! Aha! Here it is! …Huh. …It’s a Cluckon weapon.”
“Cluckon?” asked Sylvia. “Those chickens? Why would they want it?”
“It was intended to be a weapon to use the powers of the Mooplexians to psychically attack someone, but it looks like Lord Hater intended to use that power for his own purposes.”
“And Mooplexians are…?” asked Tysar.
“Well, they look like the dumbest creatures in the universe, but those are only shells of their real selves. Their actual intelligence is phenomenal, rivaling even the Time Lords. And using them as a power source for this psychic cloning machine WOULD give Hater a degree of control…right! We have to go to the Mooplexian Homeworld!”
“Doctor, we can’t just leave! The TARDIS is still by the lake!” protested Tysar.
“Lord Hater can guard that lake as much as he wants,” replied the Doctor, “but the weapon needs to be destroyed and the Mooplexians have that kind of reach.”
“Doctor, there’s sure to be Watchdogs…well, WATCHING the TARDIS!”
“Leave that to me and Wander!” replied Sylvia. Wander then took off his hat and rummaged around in it.
“Let’s see…aha!” He pulled out a Watchdog’s suit! “They’re about my height! I always wanted to see what being a Watchdog was like!”
“Perfect! Let’s go!” declared the Doctor.
The Doctor and her group arrived at the front of the Skullship where guards were placed for any attempted jailbreaks. Wander was dressed up in his Watchdog suit and had a super soaker in his hands. It looked like one of the Watchdogs’ usual laser rifles, so no one really blinked. “All right, as we planned,” the Doctor said to Wander.
“Right,” replied Wander. “And…sorry in advance.” He then “roughly” shoved the Doctor forward. “Come on, you!” he barked. “Get going! You too, Zbornak! And you apes!” Everyone marched towards the front.
“HALT!” called one of the guards. “What do you think you’re doing, Private? The prisoners are supposed to stay in their cells!”
“Lord Hater ordered me to give them some exercise as long as we’re on the planet!” replied Wander.
“It’s true,” replied Raz. “Go ahead and check with him.”
“Yes, he was quite insistent,” supplied the Doctor.
“Yeah, right!” scoffed the other guard. “Let me just check, huh?” He pulled out a walkie-talkie and called up Lord Hater.
“What is it, Bob?!” demanded Lord Hater. “I’m busy making my new torture room mixtape!”
“Lord Hater, one of the Privates said that he got direct orders from you to-.”
“ARE YOU MAKING ONE OF THE PRIVATES DISOBEY ME?!” shouted Hater.
“N-NO, SIR!” yelped the guard. “NOT AT ALL, SIR!”
“THEN LET HIM GET ON WITH IT! HATER, OUT!” Hater hung up.
“…W-Well, get on with it!” ordered the guard as he and his friend stepped aside.
“Thanks!” replied Wander. He then escorted everyone out. After a few seconds, one of the guards thought for a moment.
“…Hang on! Since when do we have orange beards?!” he asked his friend. The other guard goggled, then whirled around, blaster armed!
“HEY! GET BACK IN YOUR CELLS!” he shouted.
“RUN!” shouted the Doctor. The group rushed towards the TARDIS and made it inside as the Watchdogs fired!