With a third of the segments of the Key to Time now in their possession, the TARDIS crew were sailing through the Time Vortex. Rassilon was at the console this time, checking things over with a huge book to occasionally look at. “Let’s see…Doctor, you really shouldn’t leave the brakes on.”
“Erm, Rassilon,” said the Doctor once she entered the console room, “what are you doing?”
“Replacing your brakes, Doctor,” replied Rassilon. “The TARDIS could use it.” The TARDIS shuddered a bit. “There we go! And the noises are switched on! The arrival and takeoff noises can be switched on and off. It was the Type 40’s that made it a feature!”
“Rassilon, I don’t want you to take umbrage, but might I suggest TARDIS maintenance be left to me? I know you’re the creator of the first TARDIS-.”
“That’s rather patronizing of you!”
“The point is, the old girl IS rather dimensionally temperamental, and Type 40’s aren’t your forte, are they?”
“They are when the manual is available,” retorted Rassilon as she closed the book and waved it in the Doctor’s face. “Maybe indulge your TARDIS and fix it according to the manual once in a while, hm? It would keep its grumblings down to a minimum.” The TARDIS shuddered again.
“Yes, all right, you don’t need to test the brakes again!” remarked the Doctor.
“I’m not, we’re slowing down for arrival,” replied Rassilon. The TARDIS made its arrival noise and the thud followed.
“…Well…thank you,” mumbled the Doctor. She then put her hands on the telepathic circuits. “Is that really what you’ve been telling me?” she asked the TARDIS. “You just want the occasional repairs according to the book?” The TARDIS mentally responded. “…Every 2,000 years, then. All right, old girl. I’m sorry for not listening properly.” The TARDIS sent waves of reassurance. “Now then,” the Doctor checked the readings on the other console panels, “let’s see where we are. …Huh, Japan again.”
“Japan?” asked William’s voice as he and Amy entered the console room. “Are we gonna see Godzilla again?”
“Hopefully not,” replied the Doctor. “We’re in Tokyo. Ginza, to be precise. A high-end fashion shopping district in Chūō, built on an old swamp before becoming what it is today.”
“I suppose the big question is when we are,” mused Amy.
“Readings say the local date is…the 13th of April, 2025,” said the Doctor.
“Ah, my native time,” chuckled William. “Only four months from when I first went inside the TARDIS.”
“So, what alley did we land in?” asked Rassilon.
“…We…We didn’t,” replied the Doctor.
“Doctor!”
“We’re somewhere public?” asked Amy.
“Won’t the TARDIS stick out like a sore thumb?” quizzed William. “I mean, it’s got English words and the Japanese-.”
“It’s all right,” assured the Doctor.
“All right?! Doctor, you and Rassilon look human, yes, but your accents sound British to me. I’ve got African features and have an American accent. The three of us could at least pass for human, but Amy…she’s pink, wearing black, and she’s a three-foot-tall talking hedgehog with connected eyes!”
“William’s right, Doctor,” agreed Rassilon. “We Time Lords don’t care to be conspicuous…some of us, anyways.”
“Everyone, here’s what I observed about average people, even the average people within Time Lord society,” said the Doctor. “You put a mysterious blue box with a bunch of foreigners in it slap bang in the middle of town, what do you do? You walk past it because it’s too weird for you and you’d quickly focus on normal things like bills or jobs or train schedules. Now please, everyone, let’s not get bogged down by our oddities. Let’s just, I dunno, go find the third segment.”
“…Oh, very well,” sighed Rassilon. She retrieved the tracer and everyone headed to the door.
William was surprised that he was looking at the signs and reading English. “…Doctor, you said the TARDIS had universal translators, right?” he asked. “Do they also work on signs?”
“Of course. Why?” asked the Doctor.
“Nothing, just checking.”
“…It’s somewhere in this vicinity,” remarked Rassilon as she looked at the tracer. She then pointed it down an alley. The clicking then spiked! “Down there!” she said.
“Come on, let’s try and make this quick,” urged the Doctor. Everyone then headed down the alley. There didn’t seem to be anything worthwhile, but they couldn’t take the chance. What they didn’t realize was that they were being watched. As Rassilon waved the tracer, it clicked rapidly as it pointed at a pile of objects. One of the objects seemed to be a roughly-shaped sphere made of pale-pink plastic.
“…Doctor!” called Rassilon. Everyone rushed to her.
“What is it?” asked the Doctor. Rassilon pointed the tracer at the plastic sphere. The Doctor’s eyes widened. “…Oh dear,” she muttered.
“A shopping district will make a perfect place for its army,” said Rassilon.
“Doctor, Rassilon, what’s going on?” asked William. “Is that thing really the third segment?”
“Yes, but now it’s become one of the more dangerous segments,” replied the Doctor. “That’s a Nestene Control Sphere. The Nestene Consciousness is here.”
“What’s the Nestene Consciousness?” asked Amy.
“A creature that can control anything made of plastic,” explained the Doctor. “Toys, electronic casings, usually shop window dummies.”
“…Like the one over there?” asked William as he pointed down the alley. The shop window dummy was for women’s clothing, evidently. It had ditched the heels as it walked. Yes, walked. It was moving.
“That’s not a dummy anymore!” warned Rassilon. “That’s an Auton soldier for the Nestene Consciousness! Grab that sphere and run!” William grabbed the sphere and was about to run, but the exit was blocked. It looked like a Japanese school boy was standing there, adolescent and with the build of a young judo fighter.
“Kid, get out of the way!” protested William.
“The Control Unit,” demanded the kid. “Hand it over.”
“…Wait a minute,” muttered William. He noticed that the kid looked too shiny, almost…like plastic. “…Doctor, can this Nestene thing make plastic people?!”
“It can create duplicates, yes,” replied the Doctor. She then looked down the other end of the alley. “…Oh dear! William, come back here!” The plastic kid looked down to the dummy.
“Destroy. Total destruction. The Time Lords first. They must pay for what they’ve done to us.”
“Yep, still sore about that!” gulped the Doctor.
“Sore about what?!” asked Rassilon. “And why us first?! We were allies!”
“Until they lost their food planets in the Time War!”
“They can’t blame us for that!”
“Doctor, I’m not sure I like what the Auton’s doing!” warned Amy. The Auton raised its right hand, then the fingers came down on a hinge at the pinky joint and a thin tube extended.
“GET DOWN!” called William. Everyone ducked as the tube fired something, making a noise that sounded like a click and a woosh. The shot caused a trash bag to explode!
“Great! A dummy with a gun!” said Amy.
“Sounds like the average American!” replied William. Rassilon then threw another trash bag at the Auton, knocking it down.
“RUN!” called the Doctor. The group ran down the alley, taking the sphere with it!
“STOP!” called the kid. He chased after them while raising his right hand, his fingers falling away on their own hinge, revealing his own Auton gun. He fired, but couldn’t get a decent shot.
“I have to admit, I never thought I’d be running from a window dummy!” said William as the crew escaped. They found a place to catch their breath.
“…Doctor, we HAVE to defeat the Nestene Consciousness,” panted Rassilon. “On top of them converting Earth into a new food planet, they’ll possess the third segment.”
“Both bad in the long run,” remarked the Doctor. “We need to find where it’s broadcasting from.”
“Broadcasting?” asked William. “You mean the Nestene thing is using a signal to make plastic killers?”
“Yes, and it would need a powerful transmitter.”
“What about Tokyo Tower?” The Doctor pondered William’s guess.
“That would be a likely place,” she said. “But we’d need to get there quickly and the Autons will certainly intercept us if we used Japan’s public transport.”
“Crap, and I don’t have yen on me,” muttered William.
“What about the TARDIS?” asked Amy.
“The TARDIS is now ours,” came the voice of the plastic kid as he and the Auton caught up, aiming their arm-guns. “The Control Unit belongs to us. Hand it over.”
“Hold on a minute!” called the Doctor. “The kid you’re impersonating, the one still alive! What’s his name?!”
“…Keito Myokoin,” replied the kid.
“Right, calling you Plas-Keito here,” said the Doctor. “Look, we need to borrow this and-!”
“That is our property,” replied Plas-Keito. “You have spoken long enough. Auton, destroy. Total Destruction.”
“That’s enough of that stupidity,” scoffed a voice. A man then stepped out of the alley. He had a pink camera and took a picture of the scene. The Doctor blinked.
“…Tsukasa Kadoya,” she said. “…Still taking pictures of alternate worlds, huh?”
“I see you still get into scrapes, Doctor,” replied the new man.
“New target. Tsukasa Kadoya. Destroy. Personal,” droned Plas-Keito. He put his fingers back on, concealing the gun, then pulled out a purple, circular device with a monstrous face on it. He pressed the button on top.
“Geiz!” announced the device in a demonic voice. The two Time Lords realized what was going on!
