Prologue.

"You will fail. None are match for me."

"Yeah mate, that's what they all say."

The Doctor had his back against the wall, literally. He was dangling three foot off the ground, suspended by his suit lapels, which happened to be in the clutches of a rather terrifying Xanodere with aspirations of ultimate power and mass destruction. The same old usual to tell the truth.

The Xanodere was a huge creature from a planet not too far away from a nebular containing a central pulsar. As such, the species had evolved skin like biological body armour, a mottled greyish purple that secreted a rotten smelling liquid that aided in protecting the species from the radiation of the pulsar. The race was of mammoth size and they were typically warriors by nature. They were usually xenophobic and untrustworthy of other races, as such they more often than not kept to themselves unless anything came too close to their space borders. In that case they hopped into their warships and chased the intruders for light years.

Due to this, the Doctor was quite shocked to find himself being accosted by one on Adelphi Prime.

He and Rose had come here so he could show her the beautiful light displays that lit up the solar system at night. So far they had been here for three nights in an underground base and had failed to see the lights at all. They had found themselves embroiled in the Xanodere's plot to overthrow the government of the Prime. They had waded in as they usually do and had succeeded in disrupting his plans and disbanding his followers. The only thing left to do was to take down Xanodere and turn him in to the galactic services for judgement of his crimes.

This is how the Doctor found himself suspended by his lapels, up against the wall being held up by a Xanodere. Rose was in another section of the base, the Doctor had absolutely no idea as to where. She had wandered off yet again and he only hoped she was having more fun than he presently was.

The Xanodere lowered him slightly as he removed his left claw from the Doctor's jacket and promptly delivered a vicious backhand that sent the Doctor flying across the room. Seeing stars and black spots swarming his vision the Doctor was unable to respond in time to stop the beast coming at him again. The creature heaved him up again, this time with one hand clenched tight around the Doctor's throat cutting off his oxygen supply and blood circulation. The Doctors eyes went wide and his hands scrabbled at the claw around his neck desperately trying to dislodge it. Despite his race's superior ability to go with reduced amounts of air, the Doctor found that his head was spinning and he was finding it increasingly difficult to stay conscious.

Just as his sight started to fail and his eyelids began to flutter, the Doctor heard a primal roar scramble through the haze in his head. He felt himself being dropped to the floor and thanked Rasillon that the oxygen starvation had left him numb enough to not feel the full impact of the floor, because the way that he just crumpled down, that really would have hurt.

The clouds in his vision started to clear and linear thought returned to his brain, just in time to witness the sight of Rose being unceremoniously thrown from the Xanodere's back. She must have jumped on it to try to distract it from choking the Doctor into his next regeneration. The Doctor winced as she crumbled into a heap not far away from him.

"Rose…Rose you all right?"

Rose gave a muffled 'humph' in response that even if nothing else, reassured the Doctor that she was at least semi-conscious, she was however, laying face down unmoving.

The Xanodere rounded back to the Doctor seeming even more menacing than before.

"You think your pathetic female can help you? Where I come from the males don't need the females to fight for them. You show weakness. Or maybe little creature, maybe you are the female of your species!"

"Hey…I resent that…I'm very manly!"

The Xanodere let out what could only be described as a deep gravelly chuckle, "We'll see." It let out a booming laugh as it pulled a strange looking device that the Doctor didn't recognise from his lasermail shirt. He realised that it must be a weapon of some description. It looked like something off those old Marvin The Martian cartoons that Rose had insisted he watch at Jackie's after he had recovered at Christmas.

Eyes wide, the Doctor could only watch as Xanodere aimed the strange looking weapon thing directly at him. He saw as the razor clawed hand closed around the trigger and an acid green light shot towards him. He felt as his body was engulfed, lifted up by this light and sent hurtling through the concrete wall into the next room with an almighty crash.

"DOCTOR!"

He groaned as he felt the light disappearing from his form.

"Oh my God Doctor…Doctor say something…you alive?"

"Yeah I'm…I'm fine…where is the bastard?"

"He's gone…you sure you're all right? You don't sound like…you."

He picked himself gingerly up from the floor and crawled his way through the hole in the wall to get to Rose.

He got through to her side and grinned at her from pure relief that she was okay. Upon seeing him however, Rose's eyes went impossibly wide, her mouth dropped open and she let out an 'eep' sound. She cautiously stepped forward to him.

"Doctor? Is that you?"

"Of course its me…who else would I be."

'Well that doesn't sound right' thought the Doctor. His voice sounded very strange and high-pitched. Not his at all. He worriedly looked down at his hands. 'Are they smaller than they used to be? My clothes are hanging a bit loosely too. Apart from the hips, too tight on the hips. The trouser legs are miles too long.'

His eyes moved back in search of Rose and he was looking absolutely terrified.

She was still wide-eyed and staring as the Doctor gave a high-pitched scream and crumbled to the floor in a dead faint.