Author's Note: You guys rock! Thanks for all the reviews! They make me feel special!
You know, I've just realized that I allude to Adventures of a Line Hopper a lot in this Season of the Child of Balime.
Seo says ridiculous things all the time. Often just to get a reaction out of people. It's debatable, before this chapter, just how much she really believes that she's God.
Of course, that's all about to change.
By the way, this plan of Kovarian's (below) would have been really interesting to watch if it were actually put into motion. I really wish I'd seen how the Doctor would manage to foil it (because you know he would). What tell-tale signs would make him suspicious? To what extent would he play along, and how would he use it to his own advantage?
I guess we'll never know.
Enjoy!
Dawn was ushered in front of a woman in a stark-looking brown business suit, with crazy-looking, frizzy brown hair tied up in a knot at the top of her head. Her round face was creased with malice, and her deep brown eyes seared with contempt. Okay… not eyes. More like… eye.
The other was covered with a metal eye patch.
Behind her were two of the creatures who'd inhabited Dawn's nightmares for longer than Dawn had been alive. The ones Dawn would always see around Sunnydale, then race back home and grab Buffy, drag her out with some stupid excuse, and take the brunt of Buffy's pissed offedness, afterwards, when Buffy couldn't remember she'd killed a monster at all and was just angry Dawn had brought her out her for no reason.
No Buffy around to help her, now.
Just herself. Dawn Summers. Facing down a bunch of scary-looking electricity channeling monsters, all alone.
"Start the gas," the evil-looking woman told another guy with an eye patch, not far away. "Make sure everything works out like we planned."
The man nodded.
Then turned, and headed out the room.
"As for you," said the evil-looking woman. "My name is Madame Kovarian. And from now on, you work for me."
Yeah, right.
Because killing the Doctor was totally Dawn's life-goal.
Okay, focus, Dawn. First thing to do. Bluff your way into making them think you're normal.
"Uh… what… are those?" Dawn asked, pointing at the two Silent creatures standing by Madame Kovarian. "Why were they all over 20th century California? And why couldn't I remember seeing them until just now?"
Madame Kovarian paused. Frowning. Then gestured at someone, who flipped on and off the light switch.
Um…
Okay.
Whatever.
"Woah, major memory rush!" Dawn said, when the lights turned on. "Where'd the two monster things come from?"
Madame Kovarian stared at Dawn, intently.
Then, gesturing at the others, "She remembers. Secure her."
The soldier people around Dawn suddenly jumped on her, tying her up with thick rope, pushing off her struggling and protests as if she were just a fly they could swat.
Before Dawn knew what was happening, she was tied up and secure.
So much for her backup plan.
"Who says I can…?" Dawn demanded.
"Everyone else jumps a little, the moment they see them," said Madame Kovarian. "A moment of fear or a moment of shock. You had neither. You were expecting them." She analyzed Dawn, carefully. "Fascinating. I wonder why you can remember them."
"No idea," said Dawn.
Although, since only she and Seo were affected… she was guessing it had something to do with her being 'the Key'.
Who knew why that had any effect, though.
"Perhaps they affect artificially created people differently than the rest of us," Madame Kovarian mused. She waved a device over Dawn, and then checked the readings. "Except you're fully human. Unlike your counterpart."
Um… okay, then.
Dawn was guessing, from the way Kovarian was smiling, that — in this case, being fully human was a bad thing.
"Should be simple enough to reverse engineer you," said Kovarian, still analyzing the device. She tapped the surface, then put it away. "And the results will be going to the best possible use."
"Seriously?" said Dawn. Trying to fish for her advantage. "Massive coolness. What are you up to? Something I can help with?"
Kovarian was wary. "You don't know?"
"Oh, Seo never tells me anything," Dawn said. "She's at that rebellious teenager stage, you know? I mean, some people dye their hair black and stick safety pins through their lower lips. Seo just runs off into the universe and creates trouble for universe-saving groups and stuff." She shrugged. "I'm actually here to take Seo out of your hair. But, I mean, if you need help, then… yeah. Just call me Mega-Helpness Dawn."
Once again, Dawn could see the doubt on Kovarian's face.
But Dawn was hoping — against hope — that Kovarian would figure that Dawn was helpless enough, anyways, that revealing the whole plan wouldn't really matter either way.
Finally, Kovarian gave in.
"You're right," Kovarian said. "We are saving the universe. By killing the one man who'll cause its demise. The Doctor."
"You mean the skinny alien with the licking fixation?" Dawn asked. "He's going to end the universe?"
"You've met him."
"Not really," said Dawn. "My sister was a big fan of his. But she was off in college when she knew him, so I wasn't around that much." She shrugged. "I did kind of get the impression he was pretty hard to kill, though. I mean, my sister was the Slayer, and even she didn't get very far. And she tried to run a sword through his head the first moment she met him!"
Madame Kovarian examined Dawn, carefully.
And Dawn cursed herself out inside her head. Damn. She'd gone and started talking about stuff that had actually happened between Buffy and the Doctor, when she should have just made it all up! The truth was always way more complicated than a lie.
"Is your sister the one who created you?" Kovarian asked, at long last.
"No," said Dawn, a little surprised. "No, she was actually pretty pissed off about it. It was some other guys. I don't know their names or anything." She rolled her eyes. "I was 14 at the time, and my sister wouldn't tell me anything."
Madame Kovarian absorbed this. "Sounds like very few people tell you anything."
"Yeah, basically," said Dawn, trying to sound normal about this. "Why? Is it important?"
"You appeared in the world," said Madame Kovarian, "in such a way that no one could tell. They thought you'd always been there."
Dawn nodded, slowly. Didn't like where this was going.
"Even your sister trusted you completely," said Madame Kovarian. "Loved you and would protect you no matter what. Because of her implanted memories."
"Actually, my sister and I fought all the time," Dawn tried to put in, but Kovarian wasn't interested.
"The Doctor," said Kovarian, "trusts no one more than he trusts his companions. Even a new companion that he didn't realize hadn't always been there. Who didn't even know she was an assassin. And could get close enough to him to get rid of him for good."
Dawn stared.
Oh, no.
Oh, no, no, no!
"Apparently, there's some visual element we'd have to get rid of, with you," said Kovarian. "But Seo has already solved that problem for us. No odd green glowing around her, to throw him off. And our Silents can already alter the Doctor's memory, so that should be no problem, either."
No!
Bad, bad, very bad!
"I thought you were supposed to be kidnapping one of his companions and brainwashing her baby!" said Dawn, struggling against her bonds. "What happened to that plan?!"
Madame Kovarian seemed intrigued. "We decided this was a better one," she said. "Two days ago. How did you know our plans?"
Two…?!
Oh, God.
This was all thanks to that future-Seo. Leaving her earlier self down here longer, and screwing everything up!
Talk about history being in flux!
The Dr. Pandol from earlier re-entered the room. Immediately went to the opposite end, towards a bank of machinery. Turned away from Dawn so he could lean down and analyze it in more detail.
"You know the Doctor," said Madame Kovarian, leaning down to get right into Dawn's face. "Did he send you? How much does he know about us? How much is he willing to risk to get you back?"
"The Doctor didn't send me!" said Dawn. She struggled, even harder. "I sent myself, you idiots. To get Seo out of here. As long as Seo's safe, I don't give a damn about the Doctor!"
It was a lie.
And not even a convincing one.
But, at the moment, Dawn had completely run out of convincing lies.
"You don't have to worry about Seo, anymore," said Madame Kovarian. "She's dead." She turned to the soldiers. "Take this one down to the lab and secure her to an exam table. Dr. Pandol will—"
"You killed her?!" Dawn cried.
Everyone looked over at her.
The corners of Madame Kovarian's mouth twitched.
No, wait, of course they'd killed Seo. They'd have figured out she could regenerate, and tried it out for themselves. Done measurements and readings and stuff like that.
"What… what does she look like, now?" Dawn asked, in a small voice.
"A corpse," said Madame Kovarian. "She didn't regenerate. We used her to test the poison from the Judas Tree."
But… but…
But that didn't make sense.
If Seo died for good, now, then her future-self couldn't come back and screw up history. But if her future-self hadn't screwed up history, then Dawn would have gotten Seo out of here okay, like the Tenth Seo had said. Which would lead to the Tenth Seo coming back in time to mess with it, and cause…
Oh, God.
Massive headache.
"You look confused," Kovarian remarked. The twitch at the corners of her mouth raised, just a little higher. "Did you really think she could outsmart us?"
"It's been working so far," said the figure in Dr. Pandol's lab-coat. Turning on her heel, and lunging forwards, her sightless eyes white and charred and burnt, but her face just as determined as ever. She tackled Kovarian to the ground, wrestling her into a choke-hold, and then brandishing a knife by the woman's neck.
The soldiers nearby froze.
"I hear one footstep in this direction, and I'll kill her," Seo warned. "Now. Release Dawn."
"She's bluffing," said Kovarian, through the choke-hold. "She's the Doctor's companion. She'd never—"
"She's not bluffing," Dawn cut in. Because every moment she stared at this Seo, her Seo, she remembered… who she'd turn into. A nutcase who thought she was God. "Look, just… do what she says, k? Please. For all your sakes."
Seo seemed momentarily taken aback by the real fear in Dawn's voice.
But quickly composed herself.
The soldiers did as Seo asked. Releasing Dawn's bonds, and letting her go free. Dawn had only just gotten up, and was rolling around her wrists to get the circulation back, when she noticed the lights flickering. And the Silent creature nearby soaking up electricity, ready to take its shot.
"Seo, behind you!" shouted Dawn.
Seo spun around to look behind her, and only then seemed to recall she was blind. The momentary distraction was all it took for Madame Kovarian to get free, tackling Seo down against the ground, and shouting at the other soldiers to help her.
Dawn, not knowing what else to do, slammed the fire alarm on the wall. The entire area erupted in a shower of water as the sprinklers turned on, the alarms blaring and blazing around her, and the Silent creatures stopped their electricity absorption with a suddenness that Dawn hadn't realized they could possess.
Good move, Dawn!
Water conducts electricity. So make the creatures unable to kill Seo without killing everyone else…
"Get Dawn!" shouted Kovarian's voice.
Okay.
That sounded like Dawn's cue to run like hell. And find some other way to save Seo.
Even if it was insane and desperate.
The radio crackled into life, and the Tenth Seo picked it up. She'd just finished wiring up the explosives into the basement of the building Kovarian's Silence was using for their headquarters.
Dawn's voice came through.
"…gotten seriously bad, up here," Dawn said, her voice faint and crackly. "Seo's blinded herself, Kovarian wants to kill her, and they're trying to reverse engineer me so that a brand new assassin-companion the Doctor trusts completely will do a Dagon-Monk-Style-Appearing-Act in the TARDIS, and kill him."
The Tenth Seo picked up the radio. "What?!"
Dawn explained it, again. In more detail. Just what difference those extra few days had made. And how the situation had changed from what they thought.
Different from how the Tenth Seo remembered. She was positive she'd never blinded herself. She'd just been confused and unable to cope, and next thing she knew, Aunt Dawn was dragging her out of there.
Not anymore, it seemed.
"Good news is, I think you saved that Melody person," said Dawn. "So congrats on that. But you've definitely just killed me, Seo, and… oh, yeah, the Doctor's gonna die way before he's supposed to. Still happy you went on your little I-deserve-pain guilt-trip?"
The Tenth Seo sat very still for a few moments. Then, into the radio, "You have to get me out of there."
"Yeah, I'm working on it!" snapped Dawn. "But it's looking pretty on the impossible side, right now. How about a rescue?"
"I can't!"
"Yes, you can!" Dawn shouted.
"No, Dawn, I really can't," the Tenth Seo said. "It'd be changing around my personal timeline. Direct interference. I won't do it!"
"You've already done it!" Dawn insisted. "You left yourself down here for longer than you should have, and it's caused this problem!"
"And if I meddle any more, I could make the problem a thousand times worse," the Tenth Seo said. "I can't do it, Dawn — it's a hard and fast rule of time travel. One that even I don't break lightly!"
"Why not?" Dawn retorted. "You interfered with the Doctor's timeline."
"That's different," the Tenth Seo said. "That was a risk. This is… just… it's so much worse than you can imagine! If I cause past-me to die… the paradox would be staggering! It'd crush at least this universe, if not the ones around it."
"All this coming from Miss I-Am-God, I-can-do-anything-I-want?!" snapped Dawn. "Geeze! I mean, you threw the whole of history into flux, so why can't you…?!"
Dawn was cut off by a scuffle on the other end of the radio. Several loud yelps from Dawn.
The Tenth Seo stopped breathing, for a moment.
Then, shouting at Seo from the other end of the radio, "If you really are God, then PROVE IT!"
The radio went dead, right afterwards.
The Tenth Seo got to her feet. In the basement of the headquarters that was plotting to kill everyone and everything she'd ever known, loved, and remembered. Those she'd lost once before. And might have to lose all over again.
"If I really am God," the Tenth Seo repeated.
Then she flipped down her sunglasses, shoved them into blackout mode.
"Let's find out."
