CHAPTER 3
I do not own Doctor Who, Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Merlin, and I am not making a profit off of this.
Spoiler Alert: This story takes place in the near future of my universe so it is slightly ahead of current events going on in Jenny Tyler, Time's Angel and Time and Space. Consider it my free preview of coming attractions there for all of those who chose to read this story.
THE TRUTH ABOUT APRIL
Merlin, Cara, and Sophia had lost track of how long they had been fighting with Blodeuwedd, but they were certain of one thing. They had gotten tired of it almost immediately. Every time that one of them would do anything to the mystical woman whose body was made out of flowers she would always come immediately back together again just like she had never even had a scratch on her.
"Do you remember old Flower Face being this hard to beat before?" Sophia asked as she unleashed her most powerful Sidhe magic on her through her staff incinerating her in an instant.
"No, this time it's like she's practically immortal. Something's wrong here. There's no way that she can keep coming back over and over again like this. The Triple Goddess must be helping her," Merlin said as he destroyed Blodeuwedd with a powerful blast of mystic power himself the instant that she reformed.
"No, there's more than that behind this. Ever the Triple Goddess isn't this powerful. Someone or something else is at work here. I can feel it," Cara said as she attacked Blodeuwedd with a massive fireball that should have disintegrated her completely once and for all but somehow barely even made her blink.
"The traitor is getting worried it seems. Poor, poor Nimueh. It seems that you should have stuck with the winning team when you had the chance. Of course if you hadn't then, I wouldn't have been given the chance to regain my life after having been changed into an owl. So I guess there really is a silver lining for every dark cloud, isn't there?" Blodeuwedd said laughing.
"I really, really don't like her," Sophia said growling.
"No one does. Even the Triple Goddess is just using her because they don't have anyone else dumb enough to fight for them now," Merlin said.
"Thanks a lot. I used to be their High Priestess you know in case you've forgotten. I guess I'm just dumb, huh?" Cara said as she pretended to be angry with him while trying to hide a smile at his terrified reaction.
"I didn't mean it like that, Cara. I'm not saying that you're dumb. I know that you were corrupted by dark magic so it wasn't your fault," Merlin said quickly apologizing.
"Nice last minute save there, little brother," Sophia said giggling.
"I still don't understand why I'm the little brother," Merlin said annoyed.
"Because I say so," Sophia said firmly.
Jo and Mary were surprisingly having the same thing happen to them in their fight with Eve. Jo had wiped Eve out before all by herself, but this time both angels together couldn't even touch her.
"How are you doing this? I burned you to ashes the last time that we met, Eve. How could you suddenly get so powerful overnight like this?" Jo asked in disbelief as she unleashed every ounce of power that she could muster against Eve to no effect.
"You'll never know the answer to that, Abomination. This time I will triumph, and then my children will replace your precious bunch of sorry, pathetic meat sacks as the dominant life form on Earth. That's the way that it always should have been from the beginning. The monsters will inherit the universe not the hairless apes," Eve taunted.
"She's obviously gotten some kind of upgrade. It happens all the time in video games, Mom. The bosses always get more powerful as the game goes on," Mary said.
"I love how you use video game logic to apply to real life," Jo said groaning.
"I love how you're talking about real life when you're a resurrected human who was brought back to life as an Archangel to remake the whole universe. Not to mention that I'm your fully grown teenage daughter who was only born about a month or so ago," Mary pointed out.
"You certainly have your father's sarcastic, acid wit, don't you?" Jo said shaking her head at her daughter.
"I also have his way of cutting through the bull," Mary said laughing.
It was the same story with the Ouroboros, who was an alternate Bad Wolf/Arkytior who had gone very, very bad, who was somehow holding her own against Ishtar and Theta, and neither had been able to touch her either despite both of them having great power.
"So how is Discord doing this, hmm?" Isthar asked the Ouroboros as she attacked her with enough power to destroy a planet and barely even made a scratch on her.
"I have no idea but I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I don't care how she's doing it as long as I get what I want out of it at the end. This time I will humiliate and destroy Rose Tyler for what she did to me. Then I'll kill you for good measure," the Ouroboros said as she unleashed a massive energy wave from her body that spread out from her in all directions.
"It's really weird to see so much hate on your fate when I'm used to only seeing it filled with love," Theta said to Ishtar about the Ouroboros who looked just like her and Rose as he used his sonic screwdriver to focus his power into creating a force field to deflect the Ouroboros' attack away from him and his wife.
"It's weird to you?! It's far, far beyond just weird to me! It's very upsetting to encounter an evil version of yourself out to destroy you at any cost," Ishtar admitted.
"It happens sometimes. Did I ever tell you about the Valeyard or the Dream Lord?" Theta said.
Rose was watching all of this out of the corner of her eye as she fought with Alice, the youngest member of the Triple Goddess, and wondered just what was going on here. She admitted that she didn't know much about Eve or Blodeuwedd, but she knew for sure that the Ouroboros shouldn't be giving two Elder Gods so much trouble. Something was wrong here, and she was going to get to the bottom of it quickly.
Rose created several Vortex duplicates of herself and had them fight with Alice while her true self concentrated on the situation going on around her as she tried to find a solution to the sudden increased power of all of their enemies. Then as she stretched out with her senses, she could feel it. All of their enemies were draining power from the same source.
The huge system of Archangel Networks that Discord had set up across the universe.
No wonder they couldn't beat them Rose realized. That was why the original Black Guardian was so determined to keep Discord angry at them. He needed the power that she was bringing to them if he had any hope of beating all of the Guardians and the rest of her friends.
That was when Rose decided to try something out that she had never tried before. She only hoped that it worked without blowing her apart.
She concentrated as she felt the power coming from the Archangel Networks and slowly redirected that power to herself and away from the others. She began to glow brighter and brighter the more power that she redirected to herself, and Discord's allies immediately became weaker and weaker.
Suddenly Blodeuwedd wasn't healing herself quite so quickly now when the three sorcerers blew her apart and neither was Eve against the two angels. All of Discord's allies became increasingly weaker and weaker and so did Discord.
Discord noticed this immediately as she battled with both Jenny and the Savior at the same time. She had been holding her own against them, and now she was barely able to deflect their attacks away from her. She knew that something had happened to sap her strength, and she had a pretty good idea who was behind it.
You aren't going to let her do this, are you? It was one of her allies that killed April after all. They killed her, and then they carted away the body. They didn't even leave you that. This shows you exactly the kind of person that Rose Tyler is once and for all, doesn't it? She's no better than you are for all of her high and mighty talk. Stop her, my friend, and restart everything for the better this time. The original Black Guardian's voice encouraged her in her mind.
Discord looked to see that April's body was indeed missing. She instantly became furious. They couldn't even let her bury her!
Discord turned her attention immediately to Rose and left the battle with Jenny and the Savior in order to attack the motionless version of Rose who seemed to be completely defenseless. She quickly found out how wrong that she was though.
As soon as Discord came within five feet of Rose, she felt like her entire body was on fire and had to quickly back away from her. She realized that Rose was turning the energy that she was siphoning away from the Networks into a force field of immense power around herself that would instantly repel anyone who got too close to her. This would also keep her from overloading by draining off too much energy into herself.
"Very smart, Arkytior," Discord grudgingly admitted.
She had to get that energy back or she would not be able to reverse time and bring back the previous universe. She had to do that now more than ever because she had lost her daughter yet again in the form of April, and this was now the only way to get her back. She wouldn't let anyone keep her from getting her Andromeda back this time. No one. Not even Arkytior.
Now that Rose had intervened, Discord came up with a new plan to help those who were rapidly losing ground against their enemies. She smiled to herself as she realized how simple it was and how much it changed the game at the same time despite that simplicity.
Show her that she can't defeat us that easily, my friend. I knew that you could come up with a solution to stop her if anyone could. Do it for April! The original Black Guardian's voice said in her head.
Everyone needs to change fighting partners. Now. Discord commanded through her mental link with all of her allies.
Discord smiled as the three sorcerers now wound up fighting Eve, and the two angels were now fighting Alice who had given up fighting Rose's duplicates. The Ouroboros took on the duplicates instead, and Blodeuwedd fought with Ishtar and Theta or at least kept herself from being killed by them anyway as she kept one step ahead of their attacks and taunted them.
That was much better she realized as she saw the Ouroboros quickly destroy Rose's duplicates by absorbing all of the Vortex energy composing them into herself as soon as Rose created them. Rose could see that the momentum that she had gained for her side was already being undone by Discord and plus she hadn't heard from the Doctor in a while. She had absolutely no idea where he had gone or what was going on with him and the others with him.
This fight just kept getting better and better.
The Doctor meanwhile had problems of his own as first the Sontarans and then the Rutans started firing on him at once, and he had to use every bit of piloting skill that he had to twist and turn the TARDIS out of the way of their shots because even one shot would be enough to destroy them in the current state that the Old Girl was in.
Luckily the others had managed to pull the other Clara who was possessed by the Great Intelligence away from the controls just in time for him to save them from a near hit. Now a full scale battle had erupted between the GI and the others while the Doctor continued to steer the ship out of danger.
"Stop her! Someone knock this crazy woman out before she kills us all!" Dean shouted as the possessed Clara knocked him away with her enhanced strength as easily as if he were a child's toy.
"Hey, that's my girlfriend that you're talking about there!" the other Doctor shouted.
"Yeah, well your girlfriend's one crazy b-" Dean started to say before the alternate Amy clamped her hand down firmly over his mouth.
"That's my friend you're talking about. Don't say one more word about her or I'll make sure that you learn who the crazy one around here is. Got it?" the other Amy said threatening him.
"Got it. I think I know who the scariest person around here is now," Dean said with a fearful look on his face while Bobby laughed at him.
"Don't you forget it either," the other Amy warned.
"We're supposed to be fighting the Intelligence not each other," the Doctor called out to them.
"It doesn't matter what any of you do or say, Doctor. I'll still have my revenge, and this time it will be on two of you at once. I'll kill two Doctors! It will be even better than I imagined that it would be," the Intelligence said with glee even as he wrestled with the others.
"He really needs to join the Master in the I Hate the Doctor Club," the other Doctor joked.
"My Koschei is one of the good guys now. Well sort of anyway," the Doctor said.
"Really? Your universe sounds pretty cool. I can't imagine a universe without the Master in it. That would be cooler than bow ties," the other Doctor said.
"You take that back!" the Doctor said angered.
"You're right. I don't know what I was thinking. Nothing is that cool. Well, almost nothing," the other Doctor said as he looked at his now possessed Clara with worry.
"We'll save her, Dad," Jenny Pond said.
The other Doctor smiled at her reassuringly, but he was still so worried about losing her in his hearts. He didn't know what he'd do if that happened. He didn't think that he could take it. Not this time. It would kill him.
That was when he was surprised by Clara touching him on the shoulder and saying, "She's worried about you too. Maybe more than you are about her. She's going to fight as hard as she can to come back to you. Don't count her out yet, okay?"
The other Doctor smiled at this Clara who was so much like and yet unlike his own as he said, "Thank you."
"No problem. I just felt that I should say what she'd say if she were able to. That's all," Clara said smiling at him.
"You're a special person, Clara Oswald, in any universe," the Doctor said smiling at her in appreciation.
That was when the Intelligence started screaming, and then the other Clara went limp and stopped fighting. The others all looked at each other as Dean asked, "Is that it? That was kind of lame. I was expecting more."
That was when a now possessed Rory suddenly started firing on them with the Auton gun in his hand as Bobby said, "Idjit!"
"Well, how was I supposed to know?" Dean complained as everyone ran for cover.
"Oh, no. We're not going to go through this again," the other Amy said firmly as she quickly moved over to Rory and surprised everyone by kissing him.
At first the possessed Rory fought against Amy, and then he suddenly started kissing Amy back. The two of them continued to passionately kiss as Dean remarked with a grin, "Well, that's one way to beat him I guess. It certainly worked for Sam at least for a little while anyway."
"He's obviously jumped ship again," the other Doctor said rolling his eyes at Dean.
"Well, where is he now? I'm starting to get whiplash. This thing changes bodies like some people change clothes. It's worse than a demon," Bobby said in irritation.
"Give me a good old fashioned monster any day. I love something I can just kill with a sword and get it over with," Arthur said.
"Yes, Merlin said that you were a simple man with simple pleasures," the Doctor said with a smile.
Arthur scowled as he quickly understood the full meaning of that and said, "I'll have to remember to thank Merlin for that with a nice long trip to the stockade later if we ever get out of this mess."
"I still think that you should keep your boyfriend in line with a good slap to the face. A little slap goes a long way toward keeping a man in line believe me," Jackie said.
"Boyfriend? He's not my boyfriend!" Arthur said mortified.
"Oh, well the way that you complain about him all the time I just thought . . ." Jackie said.
"I'm with a girl. A very pretty very lovely girl," Arthur protested.
"Yes, of course, dear," Jackie said smirking.
"Oh, I'm so glad that it's not me for a change," the Doctor said happily.
"Oh, you have her as a mother-in-law, don't you? You poor, poor man!" the other Doctor said shaking his head.
"You watch out or I'll give you both a slap," Jackie warned both Doctors and made them cringe in terror.
"Her name is Morgause," Arthur said.
"Dude, get over it already," Dean said.
"Does no one care where the Intelligence might wind up next?" Clara asked worried that it might try her body next.
"She has long blonde hair," Arthur said.
Jenny Pond suddenly walked over to him and gave him a deep passionate kiss. Arthur smiled and seemed to regain his composure while the other Doctor lost his.
"You stay away from my daughter!" the other Doctor shouted.
Arthur smiled as he said to Jackie, "See?"
"Why did you do that for?" Amy asked Jenny.
"It was the only way that I could get him to shut up. Besides it worked for you, Mum," Jenny said grinning.
"Oh, thanks a lot, Pond. Now you'll have her kissing people left and right. You're setting a great example all right," the other Doctor complained.
"Oh, shut up. I had nothing to do with it," Amy said.
"Does no one care where the Intelligence is? Anyone?" Clara asked worried.
"I'm just glad that he's not inside of me anymore. I'm terrified of being his favorite toy just because I have a gun in my hand. At least I got a kiss out of it this time though. I think he left out of disgust. Apparently he doesn't like it when his host bodies are kissing," Rory said.
"If Jack were here, he'd have a field day with that one," the Doctor said with an evil grin.
"Oh, yes. He'd suggest that we all keep constantly kissing in order to avoid being possessed," the other Doctor said.
"Yes, and then he'd volunteer himself for the service," the Doctor said grinning.
"Well, I'm not kissing any of you so you can just get that idea out of your heads right now," Jackie said firmly.
"Thank God for that," Arthur said shivering.
"I hear you," the other Doctor said cringing.
They were both slapped before they even saw it coming. The Doctor tried very hard not to laugh because he didn't want to be next.
"For the last time, where did the Intelligence go? Does no one care at all?" Clara asked obviously upset.
The Doctor was upset too but for a different reason. The Sontarans and Rutans had stopped shooting at him. That was never good in his experience. It meant that they were both up to something. He had to get them out of here quickly before it was too late.
Just as he risked dematerializing, he realized where the Intelligence had gone. Now he was really glad to be getting out of there.
The Doctor's TARDIS reappeared back on the Valiant, and he immediately sighed in relief. He at least had gotten away from the Intelligence. Let him be someone else's problem.
"Doctor, where did the Intelligence go to?" Clara asked in concern.
"He obviously took over either the Sontaran or Rutan commanders. Maybe both. They can keep him too as far as I'm concerned," the Doctor said.
"Won't he just use them to cause trouble though?" Clara asked.
"Maybe but right now I'm more worried about the trouble onboard the Valiant, and there was nothing that I could do to stop the Intelligence anyway with the TARDIS as heavily damaged as it is. I had to get us out of there while I had the chance," the Doctor said.
There you are. What trouble have you been up to now? Rose asked through their link.
The Doctor and Rose quickly updated each other on what was going on telepathically, and then they both silently started to try to come up with a plan together on how to beat their enemies. While this was going on, Jenny was busy fighting the Savior while Discord had gone back to helping the original Black Guardian against the new Guardians.
"Make it easier on yourself, Jenny. Just give in and let me kill you. I'll make it quick and painless I promise," the Savior said.
"Shut up! Just shut up! If you don't, I'll rip you apart! Do you hear me?" Jenny snarled.
"It's already begun just like I knew that it would. This is how it always happens. You've already begun to change. Soon you'll be just like my Jenny was if I don't stop you," the Savior said.
"No, I won't let that happen. I won't," Jenny said upset.
Jenny had been slowly losing her mind ever since she had been exposed to the Untempered Schism by Discord because her half-human brain couldn't take it. Her powers had been greatly boosted far beyond their old levels, but the cost had been her now frequent bouts of insanity. She was afraid more than ever now that she would wind up becoming the possible evil future version of herself that she had met before called the War Lord.
Jenny had been trying to snap the entire time that she had been fighting the Savior due to both his taunts and his punishing attacks. She had done a good job at keeping her mind her own so far, but she could feel herself losing control the longer that she fought. That both frightened and thrilled her at the same time. She was afraid of losing herself forever to madness but also elated at the thought of unleashing that madness on the Savior. No one deserved it more than he did.
"I know that part of you is still good, Jenny. While that part is still in control, let me kill you. End this now before you hurt anyone," the Savior said.
"I'm only going to hurt one person here today, Savior. Care to take a guess who it is?" Jenny said slipping into madness.
She moved faster than the Savior had ever seen her move and had her hands around his neck as she ripped his helmet off like it was nothing. Then she poured a massive burst of Vortex energy into his face at point blank range causing him to scream out in pain.
"That's right. I'm really, really mad now, and you just got elected to be my new punching bag!" Jenny said as she started laughing at the pain that she was inflicting on him.
Andromeda watched this in horror as she grasped her mother's hand for comfort. She hated this. Her once loving sister had been turned into a dangerously unstable loose cannon who frightened her more and more each day. She could see her slipping away from her more and more with every moment.
It broke her hearts.
"Burn, baby, burn!" Jenny shouted as she continued to laugh as the Savior writhed in agony in front of her.
"Jenny, stop! Stop this!" Andromeda cried out.
Jenny looked at the horror on her sister's face, and her eyes changed as sanity returned to them for the moment. She began to tear up as she said, "I'm sorry, Andromeda. I'm sorry for scaring you."
"Let . . . me . . . end . . . it," the Savior slowly said.
"Oh, shut up! Why don't you go to sleep for a while? You're boring me!" Jenny said as some of her madness returned, and she knocked him out cold with a single punch.
"Jenny!" Andromeda called out.
Jenny's sanity returned and she quickly apologized again to Andromeda as she embraced her. Andromeda and Patrick were the only two people who could bring her back to sanity now when she had her attacks. She tried to keep at least one of them with her at all times these days in order to keep her under control.
"Are you sure it's safe letting her hug Andromeda?" Buffy whispered to Eris.
"I don't think that she'd hurt her. So far she hasn't attacked any family members even in her worst episodes," Eris whispered back.
"Yeah, well I wouldn't count on that continuing. I've been attacked by people who loved me before once they lost control, and it wasn't a pretty sight," Buffy said thinking of Angel.
Jenny had obviously heard them because she said, "If I ever try to hurt Andromeda, I want you to stop me by any means necessary. Understood?"
"I've got you, Jenny. I'm sorry," Buffy said.
"So am I," Jenny said.
"Just stop it. We're going to find a way to help Jenny not kill her and that's final! Got it?" Andromeda shouted.
No one said anything.
Meanwhile watching nearby was the mysterious girl named April who had miraculously come back to life. She watched everything with rabid curiosity especially Discord as she continued to fight with little success against the Guardians.
She kept hoping that Discord would stop fighting and realize just how futile that all of this was. She kept waiting to see her turn her back on the past and move forward into the future. All that she was doing so far though was to keep perpetuating the same old mistakes as she did her best to make sure that she undid the existence of a whole multiverse of beings who would never be born if she had her way.
How could she ever want to go back to a mother like that? She would sooner never tell her that she was her Andromeda come back to life than to accept a life with a woman like her.
If she didn't stop soon though, then she would never tell her. In fact, she would join the others in stopping her. She didn't want it to come to that though. She had seen glimpses of her mother's old self before when she had posed as April, and she wanted so desperately for that old Eris to come back to her. She had to give her a chance to change. She just had to. She wanted her back so badly.
Then April's and everyone else's thoughts were rudely interrupted as the Valiant came under bombardment from outside. A sudden communication came over the ship's systems as a voice said, "You will surrender to the combined empires of Sontar and the Rutan Host as led by the Great Intelligence or you will be destroyed! You have five minutes to surrender! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha! Sontar-Ha!"
"Leave it to the Great Intelligence to make stopping the Sontaran-Rutan War into a bad thing," the Doctor remarked.
Next: As if things weren't bad enough, now the Sontarans and the Rutans have entered the fight and are determined to tear the Valiant apart. It seems that the Great Intelligence doesn't care who he kills as long as he gets the Doctor. They aren't the only last minute arrivals to the battle either as one last player arrives to throw their hat into the ring. Who is it and how will their arrival change things? Also how is the original Andromeda back from the dead anyway? For that matter, how did the Savior?