CHAPTER 9
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THE UNTHINKABLE FINALLY HAPPENS
Rory and K-9, under the control of the Great Intelligence, continued to fire randomly all around the Console Room as the Doctor and the others hid behind the console in order to keep from being shot. The Intelligence continued to laugh as he knew that the TARDIS would enter the heart of the star that he had programmed it to head into in only a few more minutes. All he had to do was keep the others pinned down and away from the controls for that small amount of time, and he would finally succeed in destroying the Doctor forever.
"Not that it really matters since you're all about to die in a few minutes anyway, but I have to admit that I'm very curious. How did the two of you survive the destruction of Gallifrey?" the Intelligence asked Clara's echo and Leela.
"Well, it's a funny thing. One minute we were both sitting there waiting to die at any moment as the planet went up, and then everything went black. I thought that surely that was it, but the very next minute Leela and I found ourselves in the middle of Cardiff of all places. I still have no idea how we got there, but I can't help but wonder if we had some help from that blonde woman who said that she was a friend of the Doctor's. When I mentioned her to the man who took us in and gave me this handy Vortex Manipulator to get here with, he certainly seemed to know her. He wouldn't tell me her name no matter how much I asked. It was kind of sweet. I could tell that he was trying to protect her whoever she was. I definitely found out his name though, and I even got his phone number," Clara's echo said with a fond smile as she recalled meeting the handsome man in the World War II jacket.
"The Bad Wolf. She saved your lives so that you could be here to stop me again. Even now, she's still interfering with my revenge. It won't matter though. Even the four of you won't be enough to turn the tide in this battle. It's far too late to stop me now," the Intelligence said gleefully as he continued to open fire with Rory's hand gun.
"We have to do something. We can't just keep sitting here. That's what he wants us to do," Clara said in aggravation.
The echo of Clara nodded at her and said in a grim voice, "No, we can't, can we? If something happens to me, promise me that you'll take care of him, Clara."
"What are you going to do?" Clara asked in alarm.
"What we always do. Save the Doctor," the echo of Clara said as she suddenly rushed out from behind the console.
Leela then jumped out with her knife drawn and rushed after the echo. Both women charged toward Rory while the Doctor aimed his sonic screwdriver at K-9 and said, "I'm so sorry about this, old friend."
K-9 began to short circuit and smoke as the Doctor overloaded his circuitry. The Intelligence wasn't phased in the least though. He continued to laugh as he said, "Go ahead and destroy the dog, Doctor. It doesn't matter to me. You're only delaying the inevitable. You have less than five minutes to reprogram the TARDIS before it's too late, and I still have complete control over both it and Rory. Good luck!"
"Who said anything about destroying him? As if I would ever do that to my best friend!" the Doctor said indignantly.
"Overloading of circuitry causing activation of regeneration program," K-9 said as he began to glow with energy, and his body restructured itself.
After K-9 finished glowing, he emerged from it with a completely different appearance. He looked much more like a dog than he had in his previous form and had long metal ears instead of the short ones that he had possessed before and actual flexible legs that he could now run on among other changes including increases in speed, strength, and the density of his outer shell.
"Regeneration has purged all traces of the Great Intelligence from my systems. I am now myself again. Ready for orders, Master," K-9 said.
"Good boy, K-9. I want you to reprogram the TARDIS to change course in less than five minutes. No pressure or anything though," the Doctor said.
"Affirmative, Master. Commencing reprogramming," K-9 said as he went behind the console to avoid being shot and started to interface with the TARDIS immediately.
"That's your big plan? To let the tin dog save you? Oh, how the mighty have fallen, Doctor!" the Intelligence said through Rory even as he fought with the other Clara and Leela.
"Of course that's not my whole plan. It is a pretty cool part of it though," the Doctor said with a grin.
Then the Doctor's expression suddenly became serious as he pointed his sonic at Rory and said, "Here's the next part of it."
Rory began to noticeably slow down, and Clara's echo actually managed to grab ahold of him and toss him across the room. Before he could even get up, Leela was on top of him in an instant and plunged her knife into his chest.
"No! Don't! He doesn't know what he's doing!" Amy screamed.
"You can't kill an Auton that way, Amy. He won't even feel anything," the Doctor reassured her.
Leela smiled as her knife went through Rory and pinned him to the floor of the TARDIS. The Intelligence roared in anger as he continued to lose more and more control over Rory. He couldn't even move his hands forward in order to take the knife out now.
"That weakness that you feel is me using the sonic to slowly shut Rory down without severely damaging him. Where are you going to go now, Intelligence, when I take all of your bodies away from you?" the Doctor said.
"Ironically enough into the body of an old enemy of yours," the Intelligence said through the body of Professor Yana. Yana suddenly attacked the Doctor and knocked the sonic out of his hand as he began wrestling with him behind the console.
"Part of him is really enjoying this, Doctor," the Intelligence said as he began punching the Doctor as hard as he could.
"Why am I not surprised?" the Doctor said as he struggled to stay conscious as the Intelligence delivered a major beating to him.
"Hey, GI! Why don't you get your own punching bag? That one's mine!" Amy said as she punched the Intelligence in the jaw.
The Intelligence screamed in anger as Clara took advantage of this momentary distraction to flip him over her shoulder. Before the Intelligence even had a chance to get up, Amy punched him in the face again and knocked him straight back down.
The two Time Ladies continued to pummel the Intelligence as they smiled at one another. "You know we should do this sort of thing more often," Amy suggested.
"Please don't look at me when you say that. I'm already in enough pain," the Doctor said as he groaned while picking himself up off of the floor.
"Less than a minute before the TARDIS enters the star, Master," K-9 said.
"How long before you can reprogram it, K-9?" the Doctor asked.
"Exactly one minute, Master. I will not succeed in time," K-9 said.
The Doctor hurried over to where K-9 was and said, "I'll just have to help then."
The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to speed K-9's internal processing speed up to maximum levels, and K-9 said, "Thank you, Master. I can now reprogram the TARDIS in an acceptable amount of time. Unfortunately working at this processing rate will burn all of my systems out permanently not long afterward."
"I'll make sure that that doesn't happen, K-9. I promise," the Doctor said.
"The loss of this unit is acceptable as long as you and the Mistress are safe," K-9 said.
"Not to me it isn't, K-9," the Doctor said.
"TARDIS reprogramming complete, Master. Changing course away from the star now," K-9 said.
The Doctor quickly slowed K-9 down to a normal pace and then smiled in triumph. He was sure that he had finally won now as he listened to the Intelligence scream in the background.
Then he heard the screams turn to a bewildered yell as Yana suddenly said, "What are the two of you doing?! Get off of me!"
A cold feeling went all through the Doctor's body, and it only grew worse as he heard the sound of laughter coming behind him. He turned to see Romana pointing a staser at his back.
"Good bye, Doctor," the Intelligence said as he made Romana fire on him.
The echo of Clara quickly jumped in-between the Doctor and the blast though and immediately fell down dead as soon as it hit her. Before the Intelligence could fire again, Leela had already knocked the gun out of Romana's hand.
Leela then placed the point of her knife at Romana's throat as she said, "First, you are going to leave the body of my friend, and then you are going to leave this ship permanently. If you try jumping into the body of anyone else, then I will stab that person in both hearts immediately with you still inside of them. If you do not leave Romana in less than a minute, then I will do the same to her."
"That won't hurt me," the Intelligence said.
"Are you sure? Are you really so certain that if your host body dies with you still inside of it that you will not go along with it too?" Leela asked in a cold voice.
"You would never kill Romana. She's become your best friend," the Intelligence said.
"I would do it in a heartbeat in order to save her from becoming your puppet once more," Leela said.
"You're bluffing," the Intelligence said.
"Look me in the eyes and tell me if I am bluffing," Leela said.
The Intelligence studied her face for a moment and then he said in a low voice, "No, you're not."
Leela suddenly stiffened as the Intelligence said through her now, "Which is why I just jumped into you instead."
Now the Intelligence laughed again as he said, "Now, Doctor, let's make a deal. You allow me to kill you or I'll kill your friend here with this knife that I'm still holding at her throat."
"Don't do it, Doctor. He'll just kill us all anyway," Romana said.
"No, Romana. I didn't just get you back only to lose you again," the Doctor said.
"Very good, Doctor. Now kindly stand still and allow me to finish you off at last," the Intelligence said.
He quickly pushed Romana aside and then opened the TARDIS doors as he rushed by the console. The Doctor then realized what he planned to do and tried to move aside, but it was already too late. Using Leela's lightning fast speed and reflexes, the Intelligence grabbed the Doctor and then jumped out of the TARDIS and into space taking him along with him. The two of them quickly floated away still battling with each other even as their oxygen supplies ran out.
"Doctor!" Clara screamed as she stood helplessly at the doorway of the TARDIS.
Amy raced to the console and started trying to dematerialize the TARDIS immediately so that she could rematerialize it around the Doctor and Leela. She found to her horror though that the ship wouldn't change course at all in any way.
"What's going on? I thought that the TARDIS had been fixed," Amy said in frustration.
"Negative. All traces of the Intelligence have been removed from its systems and it has changed course, but the console controls have still not been brought back online again. I am attempting to command the TARDIS to rescue the Master and Mistress Leela through my link to it. It may take a few moments," K-9 responded.
"He doesn't have a few moments, you stupid tin can!" Amy shouted in frustration and worry.
I cannot work any faster without the Master here to increase my processing speed once again," K-9 said.
"Romana, can you do it?" Amy asked.
"I can try. I just hope that I don't blow K-9's systems out while doing it," Romana said as she picked up the sonic screwdriver off of the floor where the Doctor had dropped it.
Meanwhile in space, it was already too late. The Doctor had already passed out from lack of oxygen, and the Intelligence was close to passing out as well.
He idly wondered if Leela had been right and that he would die when she did as he began to pass out too. At least he had taken the Doctor with him he thought before everything went black.
Meanwhile back inside of the TARDIS, Clara's echo suddenly picked herself up off of the floor and said, "There's no need to mess around with the tin dog. I'll get him."
She used her Vortex Manipulator to quickly go outside in order to bring the Doctor and Leela back. As soon as she did so, she started glowing all over her body even as she laid the unmoving bodies of the Doctor and Leela on the floor.
"You're regenerating. So the Intelligence did kill you after all," Clara said sadly.
"Yes, he did. It's a good thing that he didn't have it set so that it killed me permanently. Thankfully the idiot obviously didn't know how to make it work," Clara's echo said.
"When is it going to happen?" Clara asked.
"I don't know. It could be any minute now. I have to admit that I'm a little scared. It's my first time," Clara's echo said.
"It'll be okay. We're all here with you," Clara said in a gentle voice.
Amy meanwhile wasn't paying any attention to either of them. She was checking the bodies of both the Doctor and Leela for signs of life. She began crying as she said, "I think that they're both dead."
"What?" Clara said as both of her hearts skipped a beat.
"I think they're dead, Clara. I don't feel a pulse. The other you got to them too late," Amy said in an emotion filled voice.
"We'll just see what Rory has to say about that," the Rani said as she took the sonic screwdriver from Romana and revived Rory with it.
As soon as Rory started moving again, he said, "Why do I have a huge hole in my chest?"
"You can worry about your looks later, Stupid Face. You need to check the Doctor and Leela to see if they're still alive or not," Amy said as she instantly dragged them to their side.
As Rory started to check for signs of life, Jenny and Susan both began crying as they worried that it was already too late.
"He's got to be alright. He just has to. I only just got here after looking for him for so long. I can't lose him now," Jenny said.
"I can't believe that I've lost Leela again either. I was just getting used to the idea of her being back again, and she's already gone. Now I've lost both of my oldest friends at once," Romana said as she tried to fight back tears herself.
"Rory, please say that he's alright. Please," Susan begged.
"I'm sorry. There's nothing that I can do. They're both gone," Rory said.
At that moment, Clara's echo finally regenerated. As the regenerative energy poured out of her head and arms, she started screaming. Not because it hurt even though it did, but because she had failed the Doctor.
The Great Intelligence had finally won at last.
Next: Is it really over for the Doctor and Leela? Will this title turn into the adventures of Amy and Clara? Would I really do something that evil? Probably if it was left up to me, but our special guest star next chapter just might have something to say about that. Oh and we'll also get to see a certain Captain. I'm sure you all know exactly who I mean.
