MONDO EXTRAS

"Oh, that struck a chord. Am I right that the sanctified rules of combat still apply?" Caliban approaches him, unsheathing his sword: "You stand as this world's champion." The Doctor shrugs out of his robe. "Thank you. I've no idea who I am, but you just summed me up." He is a champion god without a home, and so he has adopted one; again and always and forever, with the Estuary on his tongue. That's the kind of man he is. He tosses the robe to Rose, and asks Caliban if he's going to fuck around or get down to it -- "Or are you just a cranak pel casacree salvak?" (Whoa there! I didn't realize that was a bad thing!) They kneel, ceremonially, and Caliban looks into the Doctor's eyes. "For the planet?" The Doctor nods: "For the planet."

Caliban and the Doctor fight for a million years. Rose is like, "Look out!" and the Doctor's all, "Snarky whatever rude and not ginger some more." More fighting. The Doctor takes the whole fight out onto a platform outside the ship, which is pretty awesome, and they buckle many a swash. Caliban snipes the Doctor's nose, and he groans, because that sucks, and Rose rushes forward, but the Doctor yells at her to stay back: "Invalidate the challenge and he wins the planet!" He wipes his nose and they fight, and they fight, and they fight. The Doctor falls on his back and Caliban totally cuts off his hand. (Which: in stories you have a substitution factor, which is that it's always your eye, your hand, or your junk. Well, really, it's always your junk, because magic is about touching and knowing everything, not just half of things, but since that would suck too much, you can give up your eye, like Odin, or your hand, like Luke Skywalker, or a finger sometimes, and this gives you access to the whole world and all the things in it, and that's how you know the world and the quest have changed you. But the ones who suffer are the ones who come back, so watch what happens carefully. True death means you live like you never did before. No baggage: second chances.)