"So, where are we going today?" Amy asked, "Deep space? A faraway planet? An alien spaceship?" She looked towards the Doctor, watching as he ran haphazardly around the control centre of the TARDIS, pushing buttons and pulling levers in seemingly random sequences. Rory, Amy's husband, also watched from what he considered to be a safe distance away.

"Could we avoid the alien spaceship?" he asked, "Or just anywhere where the inhabitants want to kill us, for that matter?" The Doctor turned away from the control centre for a moment to face the two of them.

"I have an idea, how about we just let the TARDIS decide today?" he suggested.

"What? You mean, just go anywhere?" Rory asked, sounding unsure of the idea.

"Well why not?" replied the Doctor, "Anywhere is still a somewhere, and often the potential for a somewhere to be a something – which is all good and interesting until – ah! Here it is! Hold on!" The Doctor pulled on the lever that he had just located and held onto the sides of the control centre with Amy and Rory - as the TARDIS proceeded to travel through the space-time continuum, searching for a place to land….

The factory was quiet…eerily so. 5 and 9 glanced around nervously, knowing that somewhere within the deep, dark recesses of the factory the beast lurked, waiting for them. Watching them with its single, glowing red eye. Truthfully, neither of them really wanted to be there, but they knew that they didn't have a choice. The life of their friend depended on them. 2 depended on them to rescue him – to get him out of there alive. Suddenly, 5 cried out, having noticed something ahead of them. He ran up a slope of rubble towards a rusted, gold-coloured birdcage, and 9 followed, gasping when he realized what was inside. 2…leaning motionlessly against the bars. 5 reached out a hand, placing it gently on his mentors shoulder.

"2?" he asked quietly, hoping desperately that his mentor was still alive. But there was no reply. 5 lowered his head in grief. 9 stood next to him, feeling for all the world that it was his fault 2 was…Suddenly, miraculously, 2 lifted his head, turning to look at 5 and placing a hand atop of his. 2 smiled.

"I knew you'd come."

5 was almost overwhelmed with relief and happiness as he smiled back at 2.

"We thought…" 2 raised a hand to silence 5, and pointed towards a near corner of the factory in warning. 9 moved around the birdcage as silently as he could, and peered cautiously over a pile of rubble, and he saw the danger immediately. The beast was there, rummaging through the rubble, almost as though it were searching…Suddenly the beast turned, sensing that it was being watched and seeing 9 before he had a chance to duck back down behind the pile of rubble. 9 tried to call out to 5 - who was busy trying to pry open the birdcage with a long piece of wire - but it was too late. The beast was upon them, bright light shining from its eye and capturing them in the spotlight. The beast chased them around the birdcage, intent upon fulfilling its purpose and capturing its prey. The beast found that the birdcage, however, was now standing between it and its prey, acting as a sort of barrier, and so the beast hit the cage with its large metal paw, the momentum causing the birdcage to fly across the factory with 2 still inside. 5 ran after the cage, but 9 stayed where he was, knowing that he couldn't let the beast get to the others. He thrust his light staff towards the beast, hoping that the light would confuse it. It appeared to work, and the beast leaned away from the light staff before thrashing out at 9, causing him to lose his footing and fall to the ground, landing beside 5, who had just finished helping 2 out of the birdcage. The three stitchpunks backed away from the cage slowly, unsure as to where the beast was now lurking…A sudden noise behind them caused them to turn in panicked fear, seeing the beast directly behind them. Thinking quickly, 5 reached behind him and brought out his crossbow, aimed, and shot the beast in the head. The beast roared in anger, but it was obvious that the crossbow shot had done little more than irritate it. The three stitchpunks continued to back away from the beast as it came towards them, until they all fell over a large piece of fallen rubble. They tried to move further away from the beast, but realized that they had been cornered. They watched in hopeless terror as the beast prepared to deliver one last, fatal blow. 9 closed his optics and waited …but the strike never came.

Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z!

Hearing this strange noise, 9 opened his optics and looked up, gasping when he realized what it was. A lone figure stood on top of an outcrop just above the beast. The whirring noise appeared to be coming from something the figure was twirling above its head. A weapon of some sort? Without warning, the figure threw the weapon at the head of the beast – which wrapped around its mouth, muzzling it - and jumped from where they were standing, landing directly on top of the beasts neck. The beast swung its head in a wild rage in an attempt to throw the figure off its back, but the figure lowered themselves into a protective crouch, which prevented them from being thrown off. A small, round object flew off the arm of the figure and 9 had to quickly move aside so that it wouldn't fly into him. Suddenly, using the momentum of the beast swinging its head, the figure flew up into the air and somersaulted before coming back down on top of the beast. In one swift motion the figure swung their spear in a low arc through the beasts head, severing it from its body. The head and body of the beast collapsed onto the ground, and the figure jumped off the body, landing on the ground in a protective crouch, one hand on the ground in front of them, the other holding their spear behind them. 9 could now see that the figure was wearing some sort of helmet, fashioned out of a bird skull, which made them look especially intimidating after the amazing feat that they had just accomplished. The figure stood slowly, thrusting their spear into the ground beside them. They raised a hand up to push back their helmet to reveal…

"7?" 5 asked, sounding shocked. 2 smiled widely.

"I don't believe it." The stitchpunk called 7 smiled as both 2 and 5 got to their feet immediately. 2 rushed over and, much to 7s surprise, embraced her. She looked startled for a moment, and then embraced 2 back as though she were greeting a long lost friend.

5 looked as though he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing as he approached 7.

"You've come back!" he exclaimed happily. 7 smiled at 5.

"I never left." 7 reached behind her and brought out a familiar rolled up sheet of paper – the map 5 had lost on his way to the factory to rescue 2. "You've finally decided to join the fight." 7 handed the map to 5, who took it gratefully, still smiling.

9, who had been silently watching this exchange, stood up and was about to go join the others when he noticed something on the ground beside him. He picked it up. It was the round-shaped object that had come off 7s arm during her battle with the beast. Almost shyly 9 approached the female stitchpunk, hesitating slightly before handing it to her.

"You dropped this," he said simply. 7 took the object and placed it on her arm, and 9 realized that it was some sort of shield. 7 smiled at him.

"Where have you been hiding?" she asked. Before 9 could reply, there was the sound of muttering nearby and they all turned to find 2 facing the slain body of the beast.

"Rusty, hacked together pile of…ow!" he exclaimed as he went to kick the head of the beast but missed and hit 7s weapon – which was still wrapped around its mouth – instead. Laughing, 5 made his way over to help 2 whilst 7 collected her weapon. 9 stood apart from the others, feeling happy but also slightly…left out. He hadn't been a part of this family (for 9 realized that this was what they were) for long enough to be able to be a part of moments like this. So 9 stood there, almost awkwardly, just staring at the ground. To be fair, the ground did have quite a few interesting bits and pieces of things on it – there was a coiled spring, a few pens, a strange round object, a…wait, ANOTHER strange round object? 9 bent down to pick it up, and he recognized the object instantly. It was the thing that had been with him when he had first awoken, the round object with the strange symbols that the beast had seemed to want so that it could do…something. 9 remembered that the beast had been searching through the rubble - what had it been searching for? Did it have something to do with this object? 9 turned towards the place where the beast had been searching - he could see a piece of metal with some sort of indented shape, as though something was supposed to be put inside it. Curious, 9 walked towards it with the strange round object. There appeared to be 3 small holes indented into the metal. 9 turned the strange round object over with his hands and discovered that there were three similar holes indented into the back of it.

"I wonder if they are supposed to…fit together?" 9 wondered, as he placed the object into the piece of metal. Suddenly, 2 was there, pulling him away from the piece of metal as though it were dangerous.

"What are you doing?!" 2 exclaimed, as he tried to pull the object out of the piece of metal, "We don't know what it…" 2s sentence was cut off as the object began to glow a bright green colour, and 2 was thrown back towards 9 by an unseen force. 2 pushed 9 out of the way, away from the glowing object. He then turned back towards the glowing object and…there was a noise. It had been in the background for awhile and none of them had noticed it, but it was almost deafening now. It sounded like a low whooshing noise caused by something moving up and down really quickly. For a moment it distracted them from the glowing object inside the piece of metal, but then three glowing green tendrils shot out towards 2…..and hit the blue police telephone box that was now standing between the glowing object and the four rather surprised stitchpunks.