The cold shadows drifted in the cavernous chamber. Huge pieces of inactive machinery squatted like waiting monsters. The ground, shadowed by their ominous presence, was littered with human bones. Each skull, each rib, each femur, each bone of every type in that room gleamed in what little light they had, polished as they were to perfection. Only the center of the room was clear, a patch of ground containing a huge, locked trap door. Far above, a circular opening revealed looming storm clouds, moody and black, rolling angrily overhead. Thunder without lightning boomed through the dark room.

"It is time."

A tall figure stepped out of the shadows, his long coat the same color as the bones beneath his feet. He snapped his fingers, and the bones began to move. Filling the room with a hair raising skittering sound they reassembled themselves, until a small army of skeletal minions cluttered the room. The sockets where eyes once were gazed soullessly at the tall figure. "Begin the experiment!" he shouted, flinging his arm to the side dramatically. "It's showtime!"

Immediately his minions set to work, sending the godless machines whirring into life. Light and noise filled the air as the thunderstrokes became louder and fewer in between. In the thick of it all the figure waded through the chaos, bellowing instructions left and right.

"Prime secondary and tertiary generators! Maintain power output at seventy three percent! Max cooling gauge at the quicksilver tank!" The figure paused, swiveling a full three sixty before shouting, "And where in the name of everything sharp and pointy is Igor!"

"Here Doctor!" called a bent, muscular figure standing on a high-up piece of metal scaffolding. "Final preparations are complete! The specimen is ready!"

"Excellent!" boomed the Doctor. "Clear the the lift!" As the few skeletons standing on the trap door hurried out the way, the tall figure crouched down and curled his fingers under the edges of the hatch. In a tremendous display of strength, the Doctor tore the door free of its lock and the huge sheet of metal flipped upwards to lean against the glowing machine behind it. "Bring her up!"

Igor stumped to the wall and wrapped his gnarled hands around a large breaker switch. His long arms flexing, it took most of his weight to drag it down. He and the Doctor both went quiet as the subject was raised up. A reclining figure, upon a surgeon's table, upon a circular platform. A large blanket of chainmail was draped across its form, and dozens of cables came from beneath only to end blank at the platform's edge. Igor's eyes met those of the Doctor, and saw the other man was wearing one of his rare, crazed grins.

"Raise the towers!" the taller man thundered, and threw himself against an over-sized lever, Igor and a few of the more strapping skeletons following suit. As the many levers about the room were pulled, the corresponding towers dotted across the countryside rose up in response. Slowly spearing upwards, the wrought black monstrosities were like great skeletal fingers reaching towards the sky, an insult to life, to death, and to god himself. Together they were like a forest of metal teeth, their roots a network of interlocking cables leading to the Doctor's lair.

"...hmhmhmhmhmhm... hahahahahaha... AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" screamed the Doctor, his crazed laughter drowning out even the storm itself. And then the lift finished its ascent, the circular platform slotting easily into the opening overhead and the dead end cables connecting smoothly to their counterparts. Darker than death, the chamber fell silent. The Doctor's laughter, Igor's grunts, even the clinking of skeletal bones ceased.

The world held its breath.

The room lit up as the lightning started, illuminated by the many conductors as they began to glow with energy. The sky exploded, the rain of lightning so thick and so numerous it was like a solid wall of light, a bright curtain falling to be absorbed by the many black spires below. Tens of thousands of volts were torn out of the air, dragged through the wires and forced into the form below the shroud. Before the Doctor could start laughing again, Igor began to shout.

"All towers functioning! Power at a hundred and forty percent! It's happening Doctor, it's happening!"

"Don't lose your head yet!" shouted the Doctor hypocritically. "Reroute power channels and moderate the energy flow, we don't want the specimen to explode! Keep the transfer stable!"

And then it happened. An explosion, just at the edge of hearing.

"What the devil was that?"

"One of the towers overloaded! Don't worry, we can still-"

One after another, the explosions continued.

"Thirty percent of towers offline! We're losing power..." Igor seemed almost in tears as he slumped to his knees. "The machine is insufficient."

The Doctor checked a large, glowing gauge to his left. "Galvanism at eighty nine percent. This could work..."

"Doc-" The Doctor leapt through the air and grabbed the edge of a section of scaffolding, flipping himself up acrobatically. He opened a hatch in the wall and jumped out, turning to run up the side of the hollow, barren hill. At the summit he hopped on top of the shrouded body and raised his hands above his head. He ignored the spider web of lightning threading the sky above. He ignored the many burning towers, the flames spreading to those yet untouched. He even ignored Igor as he begged him to stop. He just looked upwards, and muttered to himself:

"This is going to sting, isn't it?"

The clouds parted, a perfect circle of clear sky overhead. The sun had come up, and the sky beyond the cloud cover was sparkling with cheery light.

And then the clouds collapsed together. There was an almighty crash, and an opaque cylinder of pure energy plummeted towards the earth. The Doctor lit up like a Christmas tree as he used his own body as a lightning rod, his bones shining through his skin at the unbelievable power being channeled down, down to the concealed shape below, and then the ground gave way, the platform fell, and he knew no more.

"...cter, Doctor!"

"Wdrftgtlp?" the Doctor mumbled, having been shaken violently awake. Igor sighed in relief.

"Are you alright, Doctor? That was quite the fall you had."

"Yeah," the taller man winced, rolling his shoulders experimentally. His hair was a bit frazzled, but at least his clothes were specially designed to withstand this sort of thing. "Immortality hurts."

The specimen had been strapped to the table, so it hadn't fallen off. The table itself had managed to land the right way up, and the chainmail sheet had also somehow stayed in place. Igor stepped forward to pull it off.

"Wait!" said the Doctor, and held out a pair of pink rubber gloves. "Wear these."

Igor nodded seriously. "Good idea." Donning the gloves, Igor daintily removed the sheet, still crackling with residual electricity.

Fingers twitched.

Eyes flickered.

Lips breathed.

"Its alive." murmured the Doctor, as if he couldn't quite believe it. Igor sank to his knees. "Its alive!" he said again, louder this time. He flung his hands over his head and let out a howl of savage, unconstrained joy.

"ITS ALIVE!"