MARISSA AND KOSCHEI: RENEGADES REBORN
CHAPTER 1
I do not own Doctor Who and I am making no profit off of this.
THE RANI'S REGRET
The Lakertyans had just had their entire planet freed from the tyranny of the Rani and her Tetrap allies by the mysterious traveler in time and space known only as the Doctor just a few hours ago, and now they were all busy celebrating their newfound freedom inside the Centre of Leisure as Faroon listened to them in heartbroken silence. Faroon had nothing left to celebrate. She had lost everything to gain her peoples' freedom. Her daughter had been killed by one of the Rani's traps while attempting to escape from her forced servitude to her, and her husband had died helping the Doctor stop the Rani's mad scheme to turn their entire planet into a Time Manipulator which she had planned to use to restart time and recreate the universe to make it more to her liking.
She still couldn't believe that her life had been completely destroyed just because some mad Time Lady had gotten it into her head to restart the universe just because she could. Her family had been destroyed just so that the Rani could give some species called the dinosaurs on some planet that she had never even heard of called Earth a second chance. That was just one of the reasons that the Rani gave for wanting to rewrite time. There were so many things that she thought needed changing because she wanted to make a more perfect universe.
Basically her life had been made into a nightmare because the Rani had wanted to play God. No one should have that kind of power. No one should be able to have the ability to destroy lives and property on such a massive scale. No one.
Faroon began to weep profusely, and she went outside in order to avoid being watched by the others who continued to celebrate their newfound freedom. She didn't want to answer questions or to explain anything. All she wanted to do was to be left alone and to be allowed to mourn in peace.
"Hello," a woman's voice called out as soon as Faroon came outside.
She looked ahead of her in surprise to see that it was a beautiful tall brunette who looked human, but yet somehow Faroon could sense that she was no more human than the Doctor had been. She wondered if this was yet another Time Lord like the Doctor or the Rani. Had she come here to investigate the Rani's actions on behalf of her people? No matter what her reasons for being here were Faroon really didn't care. She didn't want to answer the questions of her own people much less those of an alien. She just wanted to leave.
"My name's Marissa. Marissa Queen. I've come here to try to help this planet recover from what the Rani did to it. I just want to apologize on behalf of the Time Lords for what was done to the people here. I'm sorry," Marissa said.
"That's nice. That doesn't bring my family back though, does it? Why don't you go tell the others in there what you have to say? I'm simply not interested. Please let me pass," Faroon said in a cold voice.
"I'm not just saying that, Faroon. I truly am sorry for what you've lost. Perhaps I can make it up to you though," Marissa said.
Faroon looked at her in surprise. How had she known her name? She had never told it to her.
"Who are you? How do you know me?" Faroon asked suspiciously.
"I know all about what happened here. I've studied it extensively so that I could come here to try to make up for it all as much as I could. I came here to make amends for what the Rani did to you," Marissa said.
"So you've come from the future to try to fix the mistakes of the past because the Time Lords feel guilty, is that it? Unless you go back and fix it so that none of this ever happened you're just wasting your time. Nothing can make up for all of this," Faroon said as she tried not to cry in front of this stranger. She was less than successful and cursed herself for letting the other woman see her grief.
Marissa started to cry herself to the surprise of Faroon as she said, "I wish I could. I wish more than anything that I could undo all of this and everything else that the Rani has ever done. I can't though. What was done here has been done. It's a fixed point in time and can't be undone. Not everything about what was done here is fixed though, and those things can and have been rewritten."
"What do you mean?" Faroon asked.
"Mum," Sarn, Faroon's daughter, said as she came running up to her and hugged her tightly.
She was soon followed by Beyus, Faroon's husband.
"I don't understand. How?" Faroon asked in shock.
"I originally went back just a bit further in time than this point and managed to save both of them just before I came here. I stopped Sarn from hitting the trap that would have killed her just before she reached it by using something that my people call the Time Scoop. I installed a version of it in my TARDIS and used it to pluck Sarn out of time and to bring her inside of my ship's Console Room. She almost ran right into my console before she realized where she was. My TARDIS didn't like that much, but I don't care," Marissa said as she smiled at Sarn warmly.
"She saved my life. I almost ran into that trap of the Rani's and died. I was so close. I can't believe that I was so close," Sarn said in an emotional voice.
"I thought you were dead though. I saw a skeleton. I was told by Ikona and the Doctor's companion, Mel, that they saw you die," Faroon said in disbelief.
"What they saw was a robotic duplicate of Sarn that I had the Movellans make for me. They're experts on creating realistic looking androids after all since they are androids. I then used the Time Scoop to put the android in Sarn's place. All of this happened in the blink of an eye so that neither Ikona nor Mel noticed it happening. I was very precise that way so that no one noticed a thing. The duplicate than ran into the trap and was destroyed instead of Sarn. The skeleton that you saw was the robot's. The Movellans make their androids so realistic that they even make an internal skeleton for them based on the original species' skeletal structure. The skeletons look just like the real thing until you examine them up close then you realize that they're not made out of bone or anything else even remotely organic, and they're filled with circuitry. It was a lot of trouble to go through in order to preserve the timeline, but I think it was worth it, don't you? Beyus was much easier. I simply surrounded him with my TARDIS just as the explosion went off that would have taken his life at the same time that it destroyed the Rani's equipment. The TARDIS is a tough old girl. She can take a little explosion even if she doesn't particularly like it very much. That's great. Now I sound like the Doctor. There are definitely worse people to sound like though," Marissa said with a frown.
"You're a friend of the Doctor's?" Beyus asked in surprise.
"Yes. Yes, I am. We've been friends for a very long time now even though I haven't always been a very good one," Marissa admitted.
"I can't thank you enough. I thought I'd lost everything," Faroon said as she moved to hug Marissa in gratitude.
Marissa quickly pulled away from her knowing that she didn't deserve either Faroon's thanks or appreciation. Faroon looked at her in surprise but said nothing further. If this Time Lord didn't want to be rewarded, then that was her own business not hers. She was just so glad that she had done what she had regardless of her reasons for doing so.
"I didn't do this to be thanked. I did it to make amends. That and to make sure that I could restore this world to as much of its previous self as I possibly could. This was the final of several tweaks that I could and therefore did make to the timeline without changing too much, and even this was probably pushing it. It doesn't really matter though. I came here to fix as much as I possibly could, and that's exactly what I did. There's really nothing more to say I suppose. I guess I'll just leave you all to reconstruct your world in peace now," Marissa said as she turned around to walk away.
Then she suddenly turned back around with a huge grin on her face as she said, "Well, I do have one last gift to give you and here it is."
She pulled out a small remote control, and a large robot wheeled towards them. It immediately stopped as Marissa pushed a button on the remote to halt its progress.
"I had the Movellans make this for me as well. It's a more traditional robot used in construction. You can use this remote control to make it obey your orders. It will help you rebuild your world much quicker than it otherwise would have been. I hope that it helps you somewhat," Marissa said.
She then proceeded to quickly teach them how to use the robot. She turned to leave without another word as a sense of melancholy suddenly came over her. Making amends never really made her feel better, but then it wasn't supposed to. It was meant to restore what had been destroyed or lost, and that was exactly what she had done here today. Nothing more or less.
She was surprised when Faroon stopped her by suddenly blocking her path.
"Who are you?" Faroon asked her again.
"I already told you," Marissa said as she started to walk around her.
"I don't believe you. No one would go to that much trouble to fix things here unless they had a personal stake in this," Faroon said.
"Your family is back. That's all that matters here today, Faroon. Nothing else," Marissa said.
"Please. Tell me the truth," Faroon said.
"You might not want to hear it. You might be better off not knowing," Marissa warned.
"I think that I already know. I just want to hear it from you," Faroon said.
Marissa took a deep breath and looked her directly in the eye as she talked in a low voice so that only Faroon could hear her, "My original name was Ushas, but I was once the woman that you know as the Rani. I did so many terrible things in the name of my scientific research for so long until I went through the horrors of the Time War. That completely changed my perspective on things, and I finally realized just how wrong that I had been to do so many of the despicable things that I had done in my life. I escaped from the War and hid myself for decades as a human being named Marissa Queen. Then I happened upon my former enemy, the Doctor, once again and was finally made to remember who and what I really was. I kept my human name and abandoned my old one forever as I devoted myself to not only make up for what I had done but to also use my knowledge and skills to help others instead of harm them from now on. I've done exactly that ever since. I know that I can never cleanse myself of the evil that I've done, but that's not what this is about. This isn't about making myself feel better. It never was. It's about making things up to the people that I've wronged. That's the least that I can do after all of the terrible things that I've done."
Faroon looked at her in surprise and horror for a moment, and then her feelings quickly turned to hatred and anger. She had already suspected Marissa's secret, but just thinking that she knew it and actually knowing it were two different things.
Marissa could see all of these emotions quickly flit over her face almost instantaneously and knew that Faroon was getting ready to attack her. She really wouldn't blame her if she did. She would deserve it. Anything that she did to her, she would fully deserve and then some.
"Go ahead. Do whatever you want to me. I won't do anything to stop you. I just want you to know that I truly am sorry. I need you to know that anytime I even think of becoming the Rani again now all I have to do is to think of what I put you and so many others like you through, and I know that I'd never do that again. All I'm trying to do now is to make up for that as best as I can. I don't know if that will make you feel any better or not, but I just had to say it. I'm not saying this to gain your pity or to save my life. I just needed you to know that, Faroon," Marissa said.
She steeled herself for whatever was to come now as she bravely faced Faroon without flinching or looking away from her. She meant what she had said. She wouldn't move to stop her. She knew that she deserved whatever that she got from her.
"You've helped so many others then? It isn't just me?" Faroon suddenly asked after a tense silence.
"Yes, I've helped as many of my former victims as I could. I'm still helping them you see even now. There are so many of them. It'll probably take me the rest of my lives to help them all. It's the least that I can do though," Marissa said.
"Go then. Help the rest of them. I don't think that I can ever truly forgive you for what you did to me and my world, but I do appreciate what you've done to make up for it more than you will ever know," Faroon said.
"If it helps any, I don't think that I'll ever forgive myself either," Marissa said as she finally walked around Faroon and started back toward her TARDIS.
Faroon surprised both herself and Marissa when she said, "I hope someday that you do."
Marissa turned around and smiled at her as she said, "Thank you. Have a good life, Faroon, and try your best to move on from this. I promise you that you'll never see me again so you never have to fear me ever again. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, Marissa Queen. I hope that you have a good life too one day," Faroon said as she finally let go of past and moved forward with her life at last.
Marissa wished that she could do the same. She was trying to. Only it wasn't so easy with a past like hers to leave any of it behind.
"Who was she, Mum?" Sarn asked when Faroon came back.
"A good woman who has done some terrible things," was all that Faroon said.
Beyus instantly knew who Marissa had been now and looked at Faroon in shock. He never would have recognized her. She had changed completely from the person who he had known just a few hours earlier and in far more than just her physical appearance. She was like an entirely different woman now.
Maybe Faroon was right. Maybe she was a good woman now or at least maybe she would be one day anyway.
Marissa returned to her TARDIS and was immediately greeted by Koschei who instantly wrapped his arms around her when he saw the look on her face. He silently comforted her just as he had all of the other times before that she had done something like that. He insisted on going with her every time that she did something like this.
It wasn't just for emotional support but to protect her as well. He had been watching Marissa on the monitor and had been ready to act if that woman had attacked her. Whether Marissa felt that she deserved such treatment or not, he knew deep down in his bones that she didn't.
She had completely changed from who she had been and had now become the sweetest, kindest person in the universe. He knew without a doubt that she was no longer who she had been in the past and that she didn't deserve to die for it. She was doing far more good alive now than she ever would dead. Besides that, he loved her with all of his hearts and all that was left of his dark soul, and he knew that he would never allow any harm to come to her. He would rather die himself first.
Marissa broke away from him and gave him a tender kiss in gratitude for his support before she dematerialized the TARDIS. She was now ready to head off to help yet another of her old victims.
This one was going to have to wait for a little while longer though.
Because now the past was coming back to haunt both her and Koschei as she suddenly found herself face to face with the evil woman that she had once been. Literally.
The version of the Rani who had destroyed Lakertya and the version of the Master who corresponded with her that still had the Trakenite body of the father of one of the Doctor's companions were now both facing her and Koschei with confused expressions on their faces. Those confused expressions then quickly turned to ones of anger as the Master pulled out his Tissue Compression Eliminator and pointed it at them.
"Who are you and how have you brought us here? Tell me now or I'll shoot both of you down without mercy!" the Master threatened.
Next: How did these other versions of Marissa and Koschei suddenly appear inside of the TARDIS? That's a question that our two Time Lords are just going to keep asking themselves over and over again as even more past and alternate universe versions of both of them begin to appear out of nowhere. Who could be behind it all and what is going on? More importantly will our two reformed renegades survive meeting their many less than pleasant past selves long enough in order to find out?
