The Swords of Kali ( comic story ) Publisher ' s summary . " The Swords of Kali " version . In the distant past , the land that would be India played host to a war between ancient aliens , whose cross - temporal battles contributed to the country ' s rich myths and legends . Kali , oldest and deadliest of these creatures , was thought defeated long , long ago ; her body scattered throughout time to prevent her return . But her psychic essence could not be killed . . . nor her millennia - long quest for vengeance . Now , in the 23rd Century , she is on the brink of resurrection . And with India at the forefront of human spaceflight , it ' s not only Earth that falls to her predations if she succeeds – but the whole cosmos ! In a race against time , and across it , the Doctor and Clara must gather secrets , intelligence and allies from across India ' s past , present and future — if they are to survive . . . THE SWORDS OF KALI ! " The Swords of Okti " version . In the distant past , the land that would be India played host to a war between ancient aliens , whose cross - temporal battles contributed to the country ' s rich myths and legends . With India at the forefront of human spaceflight , it ' s not only Earth that falls - but the whole cosmos ! In a race against time , and across it , the Doctor and Clara must gather secrets , intelligence and allies from across India ' s past , present and future - if they are to survive ! Plot . Part one . Madhya Province , India . 1825 . Late evening in the jungle , two young India ns , a husband and wife , share the warmth of their campfire and a modest meal with other fellow travelers , a middle - aged man and a bent female completely wrapped in a red cape . The couple are traveling to Madhya , where the husband will work for the British Sahib . The man pokes fun at the cloaked figure thinking she might be old enough to remember the time before the British became their rulers . The man ' s two accomplices , acolytes of Thuggee like him , suddenly attack the couple from behind and start strangling them . Two bullets find the two attackers as the bent woman , who turns out to be quite young , throws down the cape and unloads her two guns . The remaining Thuggee recognises her as Rani Jhulka , who hunts and kills robbers and murderers like him . He draws his blade intending to devote her death to Kali , but Rani ' s blade finds him first . She advises the young couple not to continue on their journey as that way leads to death . She , however , plans to go exactly that way . Fortress Scindia , Madhya Province . A formidable Fortress Scindia is lit by the fool moon . Unnoticed by the guards , Rani jumps from a nearby tall tree to the wall , stealthily makes her way along it , and climbs into a window . Once inside , she continues her trek , until she hears a roar from behind a closed door and a strange voice replying some nonsense about teeth and grandmas . Rani unholsters her guns and kicks open the door . . . to see the Twelfth Doctor held by a huge hideous monster with sharp teeth and claws . Seeing her confusion , the Doctor offers that the choice whom to shoot shouldn ' t be that hard in this particular case . Florence , Italy . 1505 . Leonardo da Vinci is painting " Mona Lisa " using Clara Oswald as a model and asks the Doctor for his critical opinion . The Doctor notes that Leo managed to capture Clara ' s smile right . Clara is amused that SHE is the person in the famous portrait . The TARDIS telephone rings . The call is from Tiger Maratha . Mumbai , India . 2314 . Tiger is calling from Mumbai from year 2314 . He traveled with the Fourth Doctor and was given the phone number in case he needed help . And help he needs , against a timeless evil . He is afraid to say more lest somebody is listening . The Doctor immediately agrees to help , takes Clara , and departs Florence . As Tiger hangs up the phone , a dark shape descends from the ceiling of his apartment . Its touch drains all life from him leaving a desiccated husk standing in the middle of the room . In the TARDIS en route to Tiger , the Doctor tells Clara that they had a couple of trips with Tiger but then his wife and daughter Priyanka took precedence and he stopped traveling in the TARDIS . The TARDIS materialises on Tiger ' s balcony . When the Doctor and Clara step into the room , they see the back of Tiger ' s body and do not immediately realise they are too late . Using his sonic screwdriver , the Doctor determines that the cause of death was similar to a vampiric attack , only working on a molecular level . Suddenly , a now adult Priyanka enters the room and thinks the Doctor and Clara are the killers . Priyanka does not recognise the Doctor with this new face and wants to call the police . But when he calls her by her name and offers her jelly babies , she remembers the Fourth Doctor doing the same when she was younger and starts hugging the Doctor , causing some awkwardness . Two police officers break up the happy reunion intending to arrest the Doctor . The only question is : how did they know about the crime if Priyanka did not call them ? Turns out they are not here because of Tiger ' s murder . They are investigating a complaint from Scindia - Corp who accuse Tiger of theft . While cuffing the Doctor , the police request access to his records and information about some artefact . The Doctor easily gets rid of the cuffs and , acting in unison with Clara , they hit the police officers hard enough to be able to run onto the balcony . By the time the officers reach it , the trio is safely away . In the TARDIS , the Doctor asks Priyanka why Tiger would do business with the Scindia family . She does not know because they did not speak much lately . Her father did not approve of her training to become a space pilot . But Clara has a more basic question : who are the Scindias ? In the headquarters of Scindia - Corp , waiting for the report from the police officers , the patriarch of the Scindia family , Chandra Scindia is watching an infomercial praising the family and its space - age program . The main topic of the infomercial is " Haven " , a spatial city designed to house millions of people . The is planned for tomorrow . The orbital city is to become fully operational tomorrow and is supposed to free people from poverty , overpopulation and environmental chaos . The infomercial also introduces notable members of the Scindia family , including Sonam , the commander of " Haven " . Chandra , however , detests these " angelic avatars " of himself and his family members . He looks forward to revealing their true selves . The police officers arrive . Chandra has seen the footage from their eye - cams and is not amused by the fact that they let the Doctor and Clara escape with Maratha ' s daughter . As he turns the conversation to the goddess controlling their fates , his words become gradually more threatening and other Scindias from the infomercial , Sonam , Aamir and Karisma , sneak up to them from behind . Suddenly , Chandra transforms into a monstrous shape ( similar to the one Rani and the Twelfth Doctor encountered in 1825 ) and challenges the two officers to fight them . But they are no match for the monsters . The Doctor pilots the TARDIS to Fortress Scindia , which the family keeps under much tighter guard than their business headquarters in Mumbai . Using his sonic screwdriver to shield them from security systems , the Doctor finds a room that exists in four dimensions , that is both here and somewhen else . As he presses a shift button on one of the statues , he theorises that the room or maybe even the entire fortress exists simultaneously in other time periods . But Clara and Priyanka are not behind him anymore : he has been shifted in time . The voice behind him belongs to another star of the infomercial , Vikas Scindia , who promptly transforms into the familiar monster form . It is then that the Doctor issues his teeth and grandma remark that caused Rani to break into the room . She fires both pistols into the monstrous shape of Vikas . The Doctor sniffs the air and tries to guess the year . He ' s wrong by 14 years , and Rani calls him a madman for not knowing it is 1825 . The Doctor , on the other hand , is more worried that ordinary bullets might not be enough for the kind of creature they encountered . Rani ' s solution is simple and effective : decapitate the body . The Doctor introduces himself , and the the temporary allies walk away from the room . Fortress Scindia , 2314 . Meanwhile , back in 2314 Priyanka is worried about the sudden disappearance of the Doctor . Clara is , of course , used to that . But Priyanka has a point . If the sonic screwdriver , which was preventing their detection , is gone . . . As if to answer her question , more than half a dozen four - armed creatures descend on them from the ceiling . Part two . Rani is telling the Doctor how , back in in Hyderabad , she loved a woman named Khair - un - Nissa Kapoor . After she was killed by a Thuggee , Rani devoted her life to hunting them down and killing them . She is a bit surprised to confide these thing in the Doctor , but he assures her that for him any love is better than any hate . He also gently warns her that this quest for revenge may rob her of the very things Khair valued in her . Meanwhile , they reach a huge cavernous room with a gigantic statue of a four - armed female figure holding four swords in each hand . Throughout the room , strange " demon - lights " with open mouths , are levitating in the air on anti - gravs . Clara and Priyanka are running away from hideous four - armed assailants who call themselves " the chosen of Kali " . They almost reach the TARDIS , when Clara is captured . She manages to throw the TARDIS key to Priyanka and tells her to talk to the TARDIS and make her take her to the Doctor . When Rani and the Doctor reach the base of the statue , he realises it contains a necro - cloud , sentient life - forces harvested either for sustenance or to be stored as a power source . Rani can feel that Khair is in there too . The same four - armed creatures suddenly appear and prepare to attack them in the name of Kali . The Doctor notes that they must have stealth capabilities coded into their DNA . Priyanka managed to lock herself in the TARDIS and , following Clara ' s advice , tries talking to the ship , like she did as a child . She asks to take her to the Doctor . The central column begins moving . Rani and the Doctor are fighting the four - armed creatures , she with the pistols and sword , he by reprogramming the flying demon - lights . Just as they start thinking the opponents are winning , the Doctor recognises the sound of materialising TARDIS , and both make it to the safety of the ship . The Doctor introduces Rani and Priyanka , and the latter tells him the news about Clara being taken . Fortress Scindia , Madhya Province , 2315 . The four - armed creatures , who prefer to crawl over the ceiling , bring Clara to the rooms of Chandra Scindia himself . He takes her mobile phone and , over her protests , calls the Doctor . Meanwhile the Doctor has brought Rani and Priyanka back to Tiger ' s apartment . Taking a photo of himself with Tiger from the wall , he accidentally turns on a holo - message recorded by Tiger in case of his death . In the message Tiger explains that he was hired by the Scindia family to find four swords of Kali , that Chandra Scindia provided him with a proof she really existed . He located the four temples where the swords had been hidden and attached their coordinates to the message . He also succeeded in retrieving three of the swords when he started hesitating in the Scindias ' motives . Interestingly , the swords were protected by more than the usual death - traps of the ancients . There was also extra - terrestrial technology and killer androids . He felt a hint of evil when transferring the third sword to them . But the decision whether to return the fourth sword to the Scindias was taken from him . When he arrived at the fourth temple , it was in ruins , the sword was gone and two monstrous corpses were lying on the ground . The problem was that the Scindias didn ' t believe his story . Hence , he decided to contact the Doctor and record this holo - message as an extra insurance . He also wished his daughter to follow her heart and apologised for opposing her career before . As the message ends , the TARDIS telephone rings . This is the call from Chandra Scindia . Before the interview with Sonam Scindia , a newsflash shows a wave of spaceships , each carrying thousands of families taking off towards " Haven " . They leave Earth to live in the orbital city to escape the problems plaguing the continent of India . Chandra Scindia looks at the launching rockets from his window marvelling at human life , as the Doctor and Rani walk out of the TARDIS to negotiate . The Doctor is surprised as he thought Kaliratha such as are only interested in death . Chandra is surprised the Doctor has heard of Kaliratha . He did . Kaliratha were four - dimensional beings who styled themselves as deities to feed on the life - forces of their followers . They used totems , like Kali ' s four swords , to channel their four - dimensional powers . With them , they could slice through the fabric of time and space . Among other malevolent species , Kaliratha were wiped out or incarcerated after the Hyperion War . Chandra confirms that Kali was defeated , but they — her most loyal disciples , whom she granted immortality by lacing their genetic structures with her own DNA — have worked tirelessly towards her resurrection ever since . They just need the last sword , and Chandra wants the Doctor to procure it . The Doctor naturally refuses , but Karisma Scindia puts on the camera feed with Clara onscreen . Clara is tied under the nozzles of a rocket scheduled to launch in ten seconds . The Doctor is forced to agree to the deal , despite Rani ' s protestations . To avoid any chance of trickery on his part , Chandra sends Aamir and Karisma with them on the sword - retrieving mission . After the Doctor , Rani , Aamir and Karisma leave in the TARDIS , two four - armed creatures bring Clara to the same gigantic statue of Kali that the Doctor and Rani found in 1825 . Chandra informs here that her life was never really in danger because he has different plans for her . He wants her to host Kali upon her return to Earth . They lock Clara in a chamber at the bottom of the statue and release the souls of the dead into it . Thick violet smoke fills the chamber hiding Clara from view . Then four blue hands appear . As Chandra bows offering a sword , as a gigantic figure in barely recognisable Clara ' s body emerges from the chamber . This is Kali . She has blue skin and four arms . She has returned . Part three . " to be added " Notes . Original print details . " to be added "