The Last Light
By TwinEnigma
Disclaimer: For fun, not profit. Obviously not the owner of Doctor Who or Sailor Moon.
Characters: Amy Pond, Eleventh Doctor
Spoilers: Sailor Stars, maybe a bit of DW eps Eleventh Hour, The Beast Below, Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone
Warnings: Extreme Alternate Character Interpretation, HORROR, Tragedy
"So where are we now? Space station? Moon?" Amy Pond, the girl who never quite grew up, asked. She rocked on the balls of her feet as she trailed her fingers through the dust on the walls. "Doctor?"
The Doctor had wandered to the other side of the room with his usual energy and appeared to have busied himself with a box of some sort. Amy watched him, unable to hide a little bit of a grin at his antics.
"Not sure yet. Catacombs, maybe two yards underground, planetoid, unstable orbit, near the center of the Mutter's Spiral. Looks like fortieth century," the Doctor paused, turning the box over, back and forth, before finishing, "No. That's not right."
Amy had been traveling with the Doctor just long enough to know that when he said something like that and was making a face that seemed torn between deeply disturbed and insanely curious, then she should expect something exciting was about to happen and she should be ready to run.
Really, she was doing an awful lot of running these days.
"What is it, Doctor?" she asked, trying to peek over his shoulder.
"This is a thirtieth century music box," he explained, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and running it over the box. Finally, he turned it over with a flourish, shoved it into her hands, and pointed out some small lettering, worn smooth by time. "Ah! Look at that, Amy!"
It was a company of some sort with a fancy, flowery name that from the look that the Doctor was giving her was clearly supposed to mean something to her. "What am I looking at?" she asked.
"Made on Earth," he said, wiggling his eyebrows. Then, he was moving off to examine another wall even as he continued, "After the fall of the First Earth Empire. But it couldn't have been, since Earth was still cooling off from the solar flares and it'll be centuries before you lot get back there."
"So, what's a thirtieth century music box doing out here?" Amy asked.
"I don't know," the Doctor said, grinning a bit as his wide eyes darted back and forth over the wall, "But we're going to find out!"
Seeing as he was occupied, Amy turned the music box back over and gave it a more thorough look. The metal was dark and foul with age, but she could still make out the inlay of roses and a castle. She supposed it must have been very precious to someone once and wondered if it could still play. There didn't seem to be any sort of winding key, but maybe thirtieth century music boxes didn't need them.
Something shimmered on the edge of her vision and, startled, Amy turned to look.
There was a doorway she hadn't seen before, lit with faint light.
"Doctor?" she called, fingers tightening on the box.
"This is really very strange," he said, distractedly leaning in to get a better look at the wall. "This writing is very new, but the language is very old. And familiar. What is it? Think, think, think... Something very odd is going on here."
Seeing no help coming from him, Amy sighed and put down the music box. Just a peek, she told herself and started through the doorway, disappearing down the hall towards the light.
A few minutes later, the Doctor figured out where he'd seen it before and shot straight to his full height as he called out, "Amy!"
Silence.
He turned, seeing no red-headed companion, a music box on the floor, and an illuminated hall through a doorway he hadn't noticed earlier. Immediately, he bolted for the doorway and hoped he wasn't too late.
The hallway led to a simple stone staircase. Above, the light was noticeably stronger. Amy hesitated a moment and then carefully climbed up, looking around in growing awe. It was a Gothic cathedral, huge and eerily empty, but familiar. It felt almost like she'd seen it before on Earth, in pictures. The light seemed to be coming from where the altar should be and, cautiously, she walked towards it.
As she got closer, she realized the light was actually not coming from a light at all, but a coming from a woman, as if the poor thing was completely made of it. The woman looked human enough, though. She was dressed in white, wearing the most ridiculously odd – albeit very pretty – sailor's costume she'd ever seen, and with white hair that would put all legends of Rapunzel to serious shame. Though, Amy had to admit, she couldn't quite figure out how the woman had managed the heart-shaped buns on the top of her head.
The woman gave her a kind smile. "Hello, child of Earth."
"Hello," Amy said, making sure she was still a good distance away, just in case.
"You needn't be frightened. I mean you no harm," the woman said, smiling.
Amy fidgeted a little, willing herself to stay put. "I'm Amy, Amy Pond. What's your name?"
"My name?" the woman asked absently. "It's been a long time since anyone has called my name. A long, long time... I've been alone so long I've forgotten."
Poor thing, Amy thought. The woman had obviously gone a bit soft in the head.
"What brings you here, to Sagittarius Zero, Amy Pond?" the woman asked, smiling again.
"I'm on a bit of a holiday – cruise the stars, explore strange places, new civilizations, that sort of thing," Amy replied. Best not to mention the wedding she was putting off or the Doctor for now. Some places, as she had discovered the hard way, did not have Doctor-friendly locals. And Rory, well... that whole business was not up for discussion, least of all with strange mad women in spooky cathedrals.
"Do you like traveling the stars?" the woman asked kindly.
"Very much," Amy said, uncertain as to where this was leading.
"Would you like to travel the stars forever and ever?" the woman asked, holding out a closed hand and opening it slowly to reveal a shimmering crystal.
It was the prettiest thing Amy had ever seen and, unconsciously, she took a step closer.
"The whole of the universe at your fingertips, to travel forever and never stop," the woman said, smiling and kind and warm and friendly – trust me, trust me... "You'd never be alone again."
The crystal in the woman's hand glowed with its own inner fire and Amy could see supernovas and suns inside and oh god she could see everything in the universe and she suddenly wanted it so badly.
And then the Doctor was there, enveloping her in a hug and forcing her to lower the arm she hadn't known she'd raised. It was like being doused in ice cold water and she shivered in his arms.
"Back to the TARDIS," he ordered, his gaze locked on the glowing being in white, who still held out her hand with the shining crystal.
"Doctor?" Amy managed shakily as he pushed her behind him.
"I'm so lonely," the woman said, imploringly raising the crystal. "Won't you travel with me, Amy? Forever and ever, never alone..."
The Doctor took a step back, forcing Amy to step back with him and, in a tone that chilled her to the bones, he said, "Just ignore her, Amy."
"What's the matter, Doctor?" she asked. "She's not some kind of Weeping Angel, is she?"
"No," the Doctor said, never taking his eyes off the glowing woman, who was now standing to follow them, and then added, "She's much, much worse."
"Worse? How can she be worse?" Amy shouted, incredulously. To her, the idea of something worse than Weeping Angels was downright ludicrous.
The woman smiled kindly. "I can give you forever, an eternity in the stars."
"No thank you, not interested," the Doctor said firmly, still herding Amy back towards the stairs.
"There used to be so many of us," the woman said absently, the crystal shimmering brightly and, for a moment, Amy could see images of countless other women both alien and human in strange clothes, all with the sailor collars and shining crystals. "They're all gone now. And I'm all alone, so very alone."
"Yes, yes, very sad," the Doctor said, in a way that said he really wasn't sad about it at all, but completely anxious about getting them back to the TARDIS and away from here as fast as he could.
"You have the fire of a warrior within you, Amy," the woman said, still smiling, "Take this, fight for the stars."
Amy's arm rose almost of its own volition and the Doctor swatted it down, holding on tightly. "Amy, listen to me, Amy. You don't want that," he said, "It's not what it seems to be. The crystal's a parasite. You take it and you'll never be free. Not even in death."
"But it's just a rock –" she started.
"Highly psychic parasitic crystalline lifeform," he corrected her, glaring at the glowing woman. "They can give their hosts incredible psychokinetic powers and longevity, but at a cost. Whole systems were psychically enslaved to these things and whole planets destroyed by the psychic feedback when the hosts were killed."
A flicker of anger crossed the woman's face, before disappearing beneath the warm and eerily rapturous expression she wore. "And whole systems were saved by the sailor crystal. The sailor crystal brings life."
"Have you thought about why you wanted to take the crystal?" the Doctor asked. "It's been pushing you psychically. It prefers female hosts."
Amy paled a little and immediately looked back to see how far away the stairs were. Not too far now.
"When I say, turn and run back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said, "Don't stop, not even for a second. Just run as fast as you can."
"I'm so lonely," the woman said, her gaze shifting to the Doctor. "Aren't you, child of Gallifrey?"
He stiffened and Amy could see his jaw clench. A distant part of her mind realized dimly that he'd never said it didn't take male hosts, too, and she was suddenly struck with an overwhelming sense of horror.
Not the Doctor, she thought, not him.
"Take it. Take it and you could bring Gallifrey back. With the light of this star, you could bring them all back, safe and healed, never to fear for anything again," the woman continued, holding out the crystal to the Doctor.
"Yes, yes, never to wither, never to die, never to change. Nothing but pale shadows of what they were and slaves to that... that thing, forever!" the Doctor spat, glaring back. "Amy, run!"
The buzz of the sonic screwdriver cut through the air at a high pitch and Amy could hear a crystalline ringing noise as the woman began to scream, but there was no time to look. Already, Amy was running down the stairs and back through the hallway to the TARDIS, the Doctor practically on her heels and shouting at her to run faster as the hallway grew brighter and brighter.
The two of them practically scrabbled at the door to the TARDIS in their hurry to get inside and then the Doctor was flicking switches as quickly as possible to get them the hell out of there.
Afterwards, as they settled into orbit around a binary star in the sixteenth century, Amy finally had gathered herself enough and spoke up. "She was the last of her kind, wasn't she?"
"Yes," the Doctor admitted and fiddled with something on the controls.
"Could she really do all those things she said?" she asked, leaning back against the railing. "Bring people back from the dead and all?"
"And more," the Doctor said, looking up. "The crystal parasites were capable of phenomenal amounts of energy, even able to fold back time on itself – small wonder they were worshipped on some planets. But it's flawed: all those saved by that power become trapped in the crystal's psychic field more and more until they can't even think for themselves."
He paused, looking away. "Imagine, Amy Pond. The universe at your fingertips, life and death yours to control, and all it wants is your free will in exchange."
Amy gripped the railing.
"You'd never even know you were a prisoner either," the Doctor added, "You'd stay the same forever, never even thinking to question why you've never changed. You'd just keep going on, fighting, never able to rest, never able to die."
"How long do you think she's been there?" Amy asked.
The Doctor fiddled with the controls again. "At least since the late thirtieth century. I doubt her host even knows how long it's been."
"How sad," Amy said, honestly.
Author's Notes: I have split the Author's note into two versions. The one presented below and on my AO3 sums up responses to common questions/concerns, as concisely as possible. The second version is on my fanfiction livejournal, daddywarbats, and deals with some of my commentary about having written this fanfiction and the fact that this is my most flamed fanfiction.
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1. This is a horror story with a subtle undercurrent of tragedy: it was always intended to be one and the themes employed are those that would be expected in such a story. You were warned in the tags. This story has no relation to "fanon" beyond a few scattered themes related to horror stories and there is no bashing.
2. This is not a "Crystal Dystopia" fic. It is not even set on Earth. It is set in Sagittarius Zero, in the 40th century. Cosmos herself is canonically from the Far Future.
The music box is from 30th Century Crystal Tokyo, presumably having been brought to Sagittarius Zero by Cosmos. It's condition and the given local time being the 40th Century, as well as Cosmos's admission that she has been alone a long time, implies that Crystal Tokyo rose and fell a long, long time ago.
3A. I did not make Cosmos evil. She is a tragic figure in the story. Lonely, yes. Terrifying, gods yes. Broken, emotionally and mentally, definitely. The war with Chaos destroyed her emotionally and mentally in canon and I just extended that further.
3B: I did not make the Cosmos Crystal evil. In this story, it is a fully alien sentience. It is psychic and empathic, fully capable of warping reality, but it does not completely understand its host nor does she completely understand it. It understands that Cosmos is suffering and lonely and is trying to fix it in the only way it understands how: spreading an offshoot of itself in another host.
This is built on the existing anime and manga canonical platforms of sailor crystals being shown to react to their wielder's emotions and combined with the precedent in Doctor Who for psychic, empathic alien lifeforms that are non-humanoid, mineral in nature and exist in abstract dimensions.
The Crystal, in this story, is incapable of distinguishing between wishes and wishful thinking: it is a reality warping entity and the nuance is lost on it. There is no distinguishing between potential realities and actual realities, since they are, to it, all simultaneously existing in a possible state. It cannot accurately convey this in any way that the human mind is able to understand. Meanwhile, humans have the tendency to see others as we wish them to be, not necessarily as they are, and this is why the Doctor responds with such venom. If he used the Crystal to bring back Gallifrey, would they truly be themselves or would they be what he always wished they could be?
Would you, if you used the Crystal, ever really know the difference?
4. The Sailor Moon canon, in all media forms, has holes in it that are the size of buses. No one in the fandom should be punished or attacked for choosing to employ them or for choosing to use certain tropes to look at familiar characters another way.
I know that none of you see the reviews I choose to decline: consider yourselves highly fortunate. There are some days I honestly regret having posted this story because of the vile comments I have received and I always look at the notifications for this with a bit of dread, which is horrible because I enjoyed the challenge of writing this kind of story with two fandoms I love dearly.
If this story wasn't your cuppa concept-wise, please don't leave an abusive review.