CHAPTER 21

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Loki was attempting to take over Dorothy's mind while the Shadow did his best to knock her out physically with a constant barrage of black energy bolts that she had to keep constantly deflecting away from her. Both her mind and her body were being assaulted at once, and she had to fight hard to keep from being overwhelmed by them.

"What's the matter, Dot? Are the both of us too much for you? Are you ready to just give up now? Come on! You know you want to. It would be so much easier, wouldn't it? Just give up and leave the driving to us. You won't have to worry about a thing anymore. The Black Guardian will do all of the thinking for you from now on. Won't that be great?" Loki mocked her.

"No, I prefer to do my own driving thank you very much. I hate back seat drivers, and I don't believe in having co-pilots. In other words, get out of my head!" Dorothy screamed.

She reached inside of Loki's brain and placed a little ball of explosive Vortex energy there. Loki didn't realize what she had done until it was too late to stop her.

"No!" Loki screamed.

Then the energy in his brain exploded and took Loki along with it! He was instantly disintegrated into a pile of dust.

"Exterminate!" Dorothy said with a snicker.

The Shadow looked at her in horror, and then it was his turn to learn just how powerful she really was now. She turned all of the air around him into nitroglycerin, and then she excited the molecules in it! The resulting explosion instantly reduced him into a pile of charcoal!

"Delete!" Dorothy said giggling.

She knew it couldn't be that easy though. These were major universal entities. Still it was fun to blow things up again. It always had been a good stress releaser for her.

"You've just made a big mistake, Dot! You've made me mad!" Loki said from behind Dorothy.

Dorothy screamed in pain as she felt herself being disintegrated slowly from the inside out. She had never felt such pain in her life.

Dorothy then did something that she had never done before. It was something that she had always been afraid to do before. She used Rose's final lesson to her, and she became pure Vortex energy.

Dorothy gestured at Loki, and he disappeared once again. This time she had sent him into the exact second that a nuclear bomb went off in a past test in the Pacific Ocean. His atoms were scattered instantly.

The Shadow returned next. It had taken him longer to bring his body back together than the Aesir had. He wasn't eager to be disintegrated again so he decided to try a different tactic. He concentrated all of his power into one action as he teleported Dorothy into the Void as a delaying tactic. He then brought Loki back as quickly as he could so that it would be two against one again.

He had just finished putting Loki back together again when Dorothy returned from the Void. She was not happy. She snapped her fingers, and both of them started fading away as Dorothy started erasing them from time itself.

"You can't do this to me. I'm Loki. I'm a god!" Loki shouted in powerless rage.

"You are nothing. You are a child compared to me, and I am a child compared to the Wolf," the Vortex Dorothy said with laughter.

The Shadow could only think of one thing to do to distract her. He ordered his Shadow Cheetahs to go completely berserk and start killing without regard for their own safety!

Donna's jaw dropped open as the Shadow Cheetahs who had seemed to lose the will to fight before suddenly came back worse than ever and started trying to rip everyone around them apart. They were completely wild now and without restraint or remorse.

The worse that the Shadow Cheetahs fought with everyone, the worse the planet started to shake itself apart! The ground began to crack open, and lava began pouring out.

Donna started getting memory flashes of the death of an alternate Earth that the Doctor had once witnessed a long time ago. That alternate world had died just like this one was now doing as it started tearing itself apart.

She wasn't going to let that happen again. Not on her watch.

"Michelle, can you move all of the Shadow Kitties into the mirror verse?" Donna asked.

"I don't know. I've never tried moving that many people at once," Michelle said.

"Try it. If we don't, this whole place is going to explode!" Donna shouted.

Michelle reached deep inside of herself and concentrated harder than she ever had before in her life. The Shadow Cheetahs began to disappear and enter the mirror verse slowly one at a time. Michelle had only sent half of them over when she started trying to pass out. She could barely stand up much less keep sending the Cheetahs through. She knew that she had to stop, or her body was going to shut down!

"I'm sorry! I can't!" Michelle said, and then she finally did pass out and hit the ground.

Donna ran to her and felt her pulse. She smiled as she found that she was okay. She had worn herself out trying to help, and now she was having to rest.

"I'm sorry, Michelle. I shouldn't have done that to you. I'll never ask you to do anything like that again," Donna whispered to her.

"Just wanted to make up for what I did," Michelle murmured in her sleep.

"You have, sweetheart. You have. You're a good person," Donna said to her.

"Want to be good. Want to so much," Michelle murmured.

"You already are. Sleep now. Relax," Donna said gently.

She put a finger to Michelle's head; and Michelle smiled as she went into a deep, relaxing, and untroubled sleep. Donna smiled to herself. She had already started to feel a strong connection to this girl, and she had taken it upon herself to watch over her. Nothing was going to happen to her while she was around. She felt the same about the rest of her group too.

"You had the right idea but not enough power," Dorothy remarked to Donna.

She began to move the remaining Shadow Cheetahs into the mirror verse herself. The planet started to settle down as the Cheetahs started vanishing again. Donna wanted to yell for joy. Dorothy was doing it!

It was then that Loki and the Shadow both attacked Dorothy at once just as she finished sending the Shadow Cheetahs away. They both started to absorb as much Vortex energy as they could from her at once, and this energy loss added to the energy that she had already lost moving the many thousands of Cheetahs weakened her enough that she instantly changed back to her human form and fell to the ground unconscious!

"Lesson number one: never lower your defenses," Loki mocked the unconscious Dorothy.

"Lesson number two: never stand around gloating because it leaves you open to attack, dumbos," Donna mocked back.

The two backstabbing villains found themselves suddenly overwhelmed as thousands of Cheetah People fell upon them at once. The two of them were quickly in a struggle just to stay in one piece as the Cheetahs threatened to rip them apart with their claws.

Both villains cried out in soul wrenching pain as teeth and claws started relentlessly ripping them to pieces over and over again. No matter how many times the two regenerated their wounded bodies the Cheetahs quickly ripped their bodies back up again. Donna grimaced at the scene before her but knew that it was necessary to keep them distracted and to keep them from regenerating their wounds too quickly.

Now it was time for Donna to go to work and finish this up quickly. She pulled out a new invention of hers that she hadn't had any time to test yet out of one of her coat pockets that were bigger on the inside. This would be its trial under fire.

She called it a Vortex Laptop, a redesigned slimmer and lighter version of a standard laptop that was powered by the Vortex. It could do so much more than a normal laptop could though.

"Now let's see here. Opening up a portal to the Vortex in three, two, one," Donna said as she typed some commands on the keyboard of the computer.

Energy shot out of the laptop, and a portal to the Vortex opened behind Loki and the Shadow that instantly sucked them in. The Cheetahs had prearranged this with Donna just beforehand so they quickly formed a chain where most of them held onto each other while others of them became the anchors for the rest and held onto trees and rocks to keep themselves from being sucked into the Vortex too. Donna quickly typed in another command to the laptop and shut the portal down before anyone else could get sucked into it.

"That's the end of those two for the moment," Donna said with a grin.

She was under no delusions that they would be gone forever, but maybe they would be kept busy for a little while anyway before they could find their way back out. She was pretty sure after the treatment that they had just gotten from the Cheetahs that they wouldn't return here again.

"Thank you, all of you. You are hereby honorary members of our people and have our eternal gratitude for saving us and our world today," one of the Cheetah People, who seemed to be the leader, said.

"No problem, Cat Man. Just one question though. What do you want us to do with the corrupted Cheetah People who we just chucked into the mirror verse?" Donna asked.

"Leave them there. They are no longer welcome on our world," the Cheetah leader said with a frown.

"I'm not sure how Mirror Girl will feel about that but okay. Well, I guess we'll be going now. Maybe we'll meet each other again in better circumstances. You kitties were alright," Donna said.

The Cheetah Leader winced at the 'kitties' remark but continued to smile at Donna as he and the other Cheetah People said their goodbyes to the Bad Wolves.

Donna had Ileana pick up the still sleeping Michelle while Victoria picked up the unconscious Dorothy. She was amazed at how strong both of them were. They had both picked up the other women like they were rag dolls.

Everyone swiftly packed into Donna's TARDIS, and they returned to UNIT HQ to find Martha waiting for them with a relieved look on her face. She had been afraid that they weren't coming back this time.

"I'm so glad that everyone made it back. Rose warned me that she thought that some crony of the Black Guardian's called the Shadow was behind what had been going on in Perivale," Martha said.

"She was right. It's a good thing that Rose already knows that the Shadow is gunning for her then. It saves me from having to tell her. He's a tough customer. I hope I don't have to run up against him again anytime soon," Donna said.

"What are you complaining about? I'm the one who had to fight him the most," the newly awakened Dorothy said.

Donna laughed at Dorothy; and then said, "How about joining our little crew? You came in pretty handy back on the Cheetah Planet."

Dorothy considered it for a moment; and then said, "Sure, why not? I'll have to stay away from the other me though to keep from causing an explosion that even I won't like."

"What are you talking about?" Martha asked her confused.

"Dorothy is the future version of Ace," Donna explained.

"The same Ace who's traveling with Rose and the Doctor right now," Martha said with wide eyes.

"That's me, or it was me anyway," Dorothy said with a chuckle.

"You woman are always a handful. I never know what to expect next from you. I have to admit that you're growing on me though," Martha said with a wide grin.

"So I guess we get to rest now, right? We certainly deserve one after all of that," Donna said.

"You can have a day or two. I don't think that we can wait much longer than that to investigate our next case though," Martha said mysteriously.

Donna groaned at the thought of a new case coming so quickly on the heels of the last one as she said, "What is this one?"

"We've heard reports of giant spiders that have supposedly taken control of people by latching themselves onto their backs," Martha said with a disbelieving look on her face.

Donna, however, knew better. This brought back bad memories for her. She quickly came to full attention as she asked, "Where is this?"

Martha looked at her in surprise at her sudden spark of interest in what she thought was probably just a crank call.

"It's a little village called Pease Pottage in West Sussex," Martha said.

"Mel. She has to be involved. It's too big a coincidence," Donna said almost to herself.

"Doughnut? Are we going to get to see Doughnut?" Dorothy said excitedly.

"Possibly. That is where she used to live. She may have found her way back home," Donna said.

"I take it that this person used to travel with the Doctor?" Martha asked.

"Yeah, she was his companion before me. She left with that slimy con man, Sabalom Glitz, when he took off on his ship for parts unknown. I have no idea why though. I guess she just wanted to see the universe in a reliable ship for once," Dorothy said with a wicked grin.

"It could be. The Doctor never was quite sure why she left like she did," Donna said.

"That made two of us," Dorothy said with a momentarily disturbed look on her face.

"Don't worry about it, Dorothy. The Doctor never thought that she left because of you if that's what you're thinking," Donna reassured her.

"I wonder sometimes. I'd like to ask her if it had anything to do with me joining up or not. It'll be nice to see her again anyway," Dorothy said with a warm smile.

"Why did you react so strongly to the spiders?" Martha asked her curiously.

"They sound like some bad customers that the Doctor ran across once on Metebelis Three. I also had something very like them on my back once. It was a horrible experience, and I don't want anyone else to ever go through anything like that ever again," Donna said.

"All of you need to rest some before you start another case," Martha insisted.

"We will. We can stay in my TARDIS a few days and rest. Then we can still get there five minutes ago because unlike some people I actually know how to pilot my TARDIS. Really it's so simple when you have the right knowhow. I don't know why the Spaceman could never get to the right time and place," Donna said.

"I think that his TARDIS had something to do with it. Have you ever met Idris?" Ace asked with a shudder.

"Oh, yeah! That does explain some of it. I'm glad that my TARDIS isn't certifiable," Donna said with a giggle.

The Bad Wolves then got into Donna's TARDIS and started to spend a few days in the Vortex recuperating before they set off to investigate this new case. Donna wanted to get onto it as soon as possible. She had a very bad feeling about this one.

Back in the mirror verse meanwhile, Alina was in hiding from the wild pack of Shadow Cheetahs that had been constantly stalking her throughout that other dimensional realm since they had arrived there. She was furious at Michelle for sending them there and had been cursing her non-stop since their arrival.

"I'll pay you back for this, little girl. One day I will be free, and then I'll make you suffer for this," Alina promised.

Next: The Bad Wolves travel to Pease Pottage and investigate the mysterious giant spiders there. Plus the return of a Time Lord from classic Doctor Who and, as you've probably already guessed, the Doctor's old companion, Melanie Bush.