CHAPTER 29
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This story takes place before the recent events in War of the Guardians involving Rose.
Donna watched in shock as her suspicions were confirmed, and Michelle began to regenerate. Donna had no idea how this could be happening. Michelle was glowing so brightly that she had to shield her eyes.
"What's happening?" Elisabeta asked.
"She's regenerating," Donna said in disbelief.
"What?" Elisabeta asked because she still didn't understand.
"This should be self-explanatory. If not, I'll fill you in later," Donna promised.
Energy started to fly out in all directions; and Elisabeta, Amanda, and Katherine quickly moved away from Michelle. Everyone in the TARDIS looked on in amazement as they saw this amazing display happening right in front of them.
The glow around Michelle faded away, and she suddenly sat up with a huge smile on her face. She still looked the same, however! Donna was really confused now. What had just happened?
"Michelle, what in the world?!" Donna asked in complete amazement.
"I'm not exactly sure myself. Rose said that it was called regeneration, but I don't really know what that means. All I know is that I'm so glad to be alive again. I'm so sorry, Donna! I should have listened to everyone. I almost threw my life away just because I was too proud to ask for help. I thought that I should do it all by myself because it was all my fault," Michelle said guiltily.
"I'm just glad that you're okay now. I still don't know why you still have the same face though. Why didn't your appearance change?" Donna asked.
"My face was supposed to change?" Michelle asked in disbelief.
"That's how it usually works, yeah," Donna said.
"I'm glad my face is still the same. I like this face. I don't want it to change. I've barely gotten to use it," Michelle said with relief.
"I thought my life was pretty weird up until now. I was wrong. That whole conversation makes my life look practically normal," Amanda said.
"Oi! That's enough with the attitude, Mandy. We should all be grateful that Shelly is okay again. Don't you ever do that again, Shelly! If you do, I'll slap you back inside of that Mirror Verse of yours!" Donna said in anger.
Then she began to tear up as she said, "If anything had happened to you, it would have been my fault."
Michelle hugged her as she said, "It was my fault not yours. I was too stupid and headstrong to pay attention to what you and everyone else were trying to tell me. Thanks to Rose though, I get a second chance to make it all right again. This time I'm going to work with the others to show Alina that the Wolves aren't going to let her push them around anymore!"
Michelle started toward the door of the TARDIS to go outside and then turned around again. She put her hand over Donna's ankle, and energy poured into it from her hand. Donna's ankle healed instantly, and Michelle smiled.
"I almost forgot about that. Rose told me that I should be able to heal you that way," Michelle said.
"Rose talked to you in your sleep?" Donna asked.
"Yes, she appeared to me in a dream and told me that she could save me. She said that she was going to make me part Time Lord, part human, and part Family of Blood. I'll still be mostly human though. I'm glad about that. I like being human. Maybe that's why my face didn't change," Michelle explained.
"That Rose! She's off way up in orbit on a spaceship, and she's still saving the day even from there. It's just in her blood. The girl can't help it," Donna said with a huge grin.
"She said that I'm going to be all new and improved. I guess it's time to see what I can do now. Let's go out there and help the others. Oh, I need to bring someone back first before we start," Michelle said.
She gestured with her hand as her eyes went transparent for a moment. Suddenly Victoria appeared in front of them fighting mad. She started to lunge at Michelle at first, and then her expression suddenly changed as she hugged her tightly. Michelle felt a little uncomfortable as Victoria was still a werewolf, and she could feel her claws digging into her flesh and unintentionally cutting her slightly.
"Don't ever do that again, Michelle! I thought I'd lost you. You're one of my best friends," Victoria said in a guttural voice.
"I won't, Vicky. I promise," Michelle said emotionally.
She was starting to finally see just how important that she had become to the others and how much her loss would have hurt them deeply. She was so glad that she hadn't died now for their sake as much as for hers.
"Let's all go out there and help Ileana. That is if she even needs us," Donna said with a grin.
Everyone in the TARDIS went outside to see Abraham and Dorothy standing nearby watching as Ileana was savagely fighting Carmilla and Nicoleta. Alina wasn't lifting a finger to help her sisters. She was just standing there watching them fight coldly with no emotion on her face along with the Daemon and the King of the Great Vampires.
Alina looked over to see the Wolves all gathered together at last and finally showed some real emotion on her face at last for the first time since she had returned as she smiled malevolently at them. She looked like a cat about to eat a canary as she slowly began to walk towards them with that smile still all over her face and never changing.
"Hello, Wolves. It's so nice to see you all together again one last time before you all die! I've just been watching dear old Ileana tearing at my sisters like a wild beast while I waited for the rest of you to show. Michelle! It's so good to see you up and about again. It seems that you've been keeping the true extent of your power from me. That was very naughty of you especially when the two of us working together could accomplish so much. We could take over the entire galaxy together and maybe even the universe," Alina said with pure power lust in her eyes.
"I'm not interested. Just because you're so curious though, I'll go ahead and show you everything that I can do right now as I'm kicking your tail from here to the afterlife," Michelle threatened.
Ileana knocked both Carmilla and Nicoleta several feet away from her with one powerful blow as she turned to look at Michelle. The savagery quickly disappeared from her face as it became human once more and filled with joy and relief.
She ran up to Michelle and slapped her right in the face as hard as she could. Michelle looked at her in shock and raised her arm up to prevent her from slapping her again.
Instead of attacking her again though, Ileana began to break down and cry. Michelle put her arms around her and hugged her as she said, "I'm so sorry."
"You should be. You're like one of my own family now," Ileana said.
"She was tearing every vampire around her apart because she thought you were dying, Michelle," Dorothy said.
"I'm sorry," Michelle said again to Ileana.
"Rose is behind your return, isn't she?" Ileana asked Michelle knowingly.
"Yep! She brought me back with some new powers. I'm just dying to show them all off," Michelle said.
"Don't say that!" Ileana said wincing.
"Sorry. Bad choice of words," Michelle said.
"I find it to be very appropriate myself. You're all going to die now. I'm afraid that this touching little reunion scene is going to be cut short . . . forever!" Alina said with undisguised hatred now in her voice.
"Do me a favor, Alina! Shut up!" Michelle said as she began to fire Mirror Verse energy bolts at Alina.
Alina began to start to disintegrate right in front of everyone as parts of her instantly vanished to the Mirror Verse. Instead of her body falling apart however, Alina came back together within a matter of seconds and smirked at Michelle's efforts to kill her.
"Nice try. I've learned a few new tricks too though," Alina said.
"Oh, that wasn't all that I can do now by a long shot. That was old school. Here's what the cool kids are all learning now," Michelle said as she stated to glow with power.
"Where do you get your dialogue? Early 90s television?" Alina joked with no fear showing whatsoever.
Michelle's eyes turned transparent as she gestured at Alina. Suddenly a mirror image duplicate of Alina appeared out of nowhere and punched the real Alina in the face.
"You know you had a chance to reform and be a new person once you got away from your sisters but no! You had to go and break out and start being just as bad as you were before. Michelle could have been your friend, but instead you turned her into an enemy. Which is a shame because you had started to like her even though you never would have admitted it," the mirror Alina said.
"I've never heard such lies. I don't like you at all. You're too much of a goody two shoes. You wish that I liked you. If this is some kind of psychological warfare, you've failed miserably," Alina said indignantly.
"The mirror duplicates don't lie, Alina. They tell what's in the original person's heart. They face that person with the truth about themselves. Just like a mirror," Michelle said.
Alina began to look disturbed by this, and she quickly turned to her mirror duplicate and yelled, "I'm tired of listening to your lies, you soulless thing. Go back to where you came from!"
Alina used her new powers to attack the duplicate with, but they had no effect on her whatsoever. Alina blinked in surprise as she continued to use her powers on her double to no avail.
"It doesn't work on me because I have the same powers that you do now. I'm you in every way except that I work for Michelle, and I have a completely opposite personality from you. I'm actually halfway decent," Mirror Alina said.
"I'll destroy you yet. I won't let you stop me," Alina said furious.
"You can try, but nothing you do will affect me," Mirror Alina said with a cocky smile on her face.
Alina screamed in frustration as she continued to attack her opposite number. The King of the Great Vampires began to laugh in amusement at his would be Queen's inability to beat her copy.
"You think that's funny? You're not going to be laughing in a minute when I'm done with you," Ileana threatened him.
"You cannot harm me. I was fighting Time Lords a billion years before you were born. I faced the mighty Rassilon himself, and yet I still live. You can do nothing to me. I have nothing to fear whatsoever from one as weak as you, little vampire," the King said with a chuckle.
"I don't think that you really know just who it is you're up against, King. I'm much more than a regular vampire. I was given my powers by the Bad Wolf herself," Ileana said.
The King began to look at her in fear now as she began to laugh.
"I take it you've heard of her," Ileana said smugly.
She began to move forward to confront him and quickly jumped up and bit him in the lower leg. As she began to drain his life force, he tried to swat her off of him; but she kept moving just out of his reach and would bite him in different places each time he became too close to her.
"Get off of me, you insect!" the King shouted.
Ileana almost laughed as she did feel somewhat like an insect in comparison to the giant King. She began to picture herself as a mosquito, and that mental image amused her.
Carmilla and Nicoleta began to run forward to attack the rest of the Wolves, but they were quickly intercepted by Katherine and Victoria respectively. Donna meanwhile set to work on trying to remove the spider from the Daemon's back with her sonic screwdriver while Alina was distracted with her mirror self. She hoped that if she did that then he might decide to take the powers that Alina had forced him to give her away.
Michelle, Abraham, and Dorothy joined Ileana in fighting with the King as Elisabeta took Amanda back to the TARDIS for safety.
"I never get to see any of the action," Amanda complained.
Elisabeta smiled down affectionately at her as they walked into the TARDIS together. She knew that Amanda really just wanted to be there to protect Katherine. Not that the child really could have done anything against a vampire, but that wouldn't have stopped her from trying. She had more bravery than she did common sense when it came to protecting her mother. That was why Elisabeta was there to keep her from getting killed before she was eleven.
"You gnats have irritated me long enough. Be gone!" the King said as he stomped the ground hard with his foot and sent everyone fighting him flying away from him in all directions.
Ileana was not going to be stopped by a little mini-earthquake however. She had absorbed enough of the Great Vampire's blood into her system to try something that she had never done before. She used the power in the giant's blood to make herself begin to grow larger and larger until she was the same size that he was.
"That is very impressive, little vampire! Tricks like that aren't going to be enough to defeat me however. If Rassilon himself couldn't do it, then you have no chance," the King said confidently.
"I was trained by the one person who did beat you though. I was trained in combat by Lily. You might know her better as Sekhmet," Ileana said as she began to start to attack him with a punch to the jaw that sent him reeling.
She smiled as the King began to shake at the sound of Lily's original name. Ileana had guessed correctly that even after all of this time that he would still fear Sekhmet, and she was using that to her advantage after having heard the story from Lily a long time ago. Sekhmet had come very close to killing him at the end of the First Great Time War so many centuries ago after all. Just the thought of her was helping to keep him distracted just enough so that Ileana could hit him much easier than she would have been able to do normally.
"Sekhmet lives?" the King asked in fear.
"She certainly does. She's really going to be interested in hearing that you're still around as well too I'm sure. I bet that she'd just love to face off against you again," Ileana said as she attempted to psyche him out even more.
The King started to back away from Ileana as if he were trying to escape from her. Ileana wasn't about to let that happen though. She quickly bit him on the side of his neck as he began to turn to leave and wouldn't let go. The two of them continued to struggle as the King could only think about fleeing in case Sekhmet were about to show.
Michelle decided that Ileana had things well in hand so she decided to help Mirror Alina take on Alina. She began to create portals to the Mirror Verse all around Alina so that she could attempt to trap her back inside of it once again.
"That's not going to work this time. Even if you do manage to stick me back in your little dimension, I'll just come right back out again with my new abilities. This time I'm not going to stop until I win. I'm not going to stop until either I kill you or you join me," Alina said to Michelle.
"Why do you want me to join you so badly?" Michelle asked.
"You have great power, Michelle. We could rule the universe together," Alina said.
"That's not really it though, is it?" Michelle asked.
"No, it isn't. She likes you. She wants you to be her friend. She doesn't have any friends, Michelle. She's lonely," Mirror Alina said as she continued to fight with Alina.
"Shut up! I don't want to hear your lies anymore!" Alina shouted as she punched her opposite in the mouth as hard as she could.
"I don't think that she is lying. She isn't, is she?" Michelle asked.
"You showed me mercy. You could have killed me, but you didn't. You kept me alive all of that time when you could have let me starve to death by giving me an animal to eat when I was hungry. You took care of me when I tried to kill you. Why? Why would you do that?" Alina asked in an emotional voice as she stopped fighting.
"I wanted to try to save you. I used to be an amoral killer once just like you are. I was given a chance to change though, and I took it. I'll never make up for what I did, but I want to try. I just wanted to give you that chance. I'm sorry now that I did. All you've done is cause needless death and destruction with it. I should have just destroyed you when I had the chance," Michelle said sadly.
"You don't want to though, do you?" Alina asked.
"No. I don't ever want to kill again, but I will to save lives. Please don't make me do that," Michelle begged.
"I'm not so sure that you could," Alina said half-heartedly.
"You could have killed me when I was fighting your vampires. You didn't though. You even let Elisabeta bring me to the TARDIS without attacking her. I know that you must have incredible power now to be able to bring your sisters back to life. I'm sure that you could easily kill all of us even now, but you're haven't. Why?" Michelle asked.
"I don't know," Alina admitted.
"You want a friend. You're sick of spending eternity with those so-called sisters of yours that don't care about you. They just use you for their dirty work. They don't really care about you at all," Mirror Alina said.
While Alina hesitated, Donna started to use her sonic screwdriver on the Metabelis spider on the Daemon's back. She used the psychic disruptor setting on it to sever the spider's connection to the Daemon, and it fell to the ground unconscious.
The Daemon was now free once more, and the first thing that he did was to burn the spider that had been on his back to ashes with a bolt of electricity from his hands. He then turned to look at Alina with pure hatred in his eyes.
"You have taken power from me without my permission. You thought that you were so clever using the spider to control me in order to steal it, but you have done nothing more than seal your own doom. Now I will teach you what it means to steal from the Daemons!" the Daemon said.
Alina began to scream as her stolen power was instantly and painfully stripped from her. Then she began to slowly and painfully dissolve her body as the Daemon started to take her apart one molecule at a time.
"I'm truly sorry," Alina said to Michelle as she began to fade away.
"Wait. Don't. Give her another chance," Michelle pleaded to the Daemon.
"Shelly, she almost killed you," Donna said.
"I know but I think that there's a better way," Michelle said.
The Daemon looked at her in surprise and paused Alina's destruction for a moment. He turned to her and asked, "You would save the life of this miserable wretch after she almost destroyed you through her actions?"
"Let him do it. I deserve it after what I did," Alina said as she closed her eyes to prepare for the end.
Michelle walked up to her and asked, "This is your last chance. You'll die forever this time. If you were given just one more chance, what would you do?"
"I don't deserve it, Michelle. Let it go. I deserve to be destroyed. I just want it to end," Alina said.
"So be it," the Daemon said as he started to continue her destruction.
"Wait," Michelle said and then she whispered something to the Daemon.
The Daemon began to grow angry as soon as Michelle had finished and said, "For that, you will die!"
"What did you say?" Donna asked in fear.
Michelle said nothing as she stood her ground and refused to move. The Daemon prepared to destroy her where she stood. He fired a bolt of electricity at her, but it never reached her. Alina jumped in front of her and shielded her. She screamed as the bolt disintegrated her on the spot.
As the real Alina died, the Mirror Alina vanished along with her.
"You were right, young one," the Daemon said.
"What's going on here?" Donna asked.
"The Daemon and I were testing Alina to see if she really did want to change or not. Apparently, I was right. She died saving my life," Michelle explained.
"What if she hadn't gotten in front of you?" Donna asked.
"My bolt wouldn't have touched her. If the vampire hadn't tried to save her, I would have directed it away from her at the last second. I have very precise control over my powers," the Daemon said.
"Why test her at all? She did put us through a terrible ordeal after all," Donna protested.
"I needed to know. I needed to believe that I hadn't been wrong. She did want to change, Donna. I just had to give her something to change for. A friend," Michelle said.
"You're a much better person than I am, Michelle," Donna said with a sigh.
"I very much doubt that," Michelle said with a smile.
"Since you were right about her, I will give you your wish," the Daemon said.
He gestured at the spot where Alina once stood, and she was suddenly alive once more. This time though she wasn't a vampire anymore. She was human for the first time in hundreds of years.
Alina looked at him in confusion at first, and then she finally understood. She raced to Michelle and embraced her as she said, "I don't deserve this. I know that. Thank you though. Thank you so much!"
Donna just shook her head. She wasn't sure that Alina deserved a second chance or not just because she was willing to die to save Michelle. Although she had to admit that it sounded like something that the Doctor would do.
The King decided to leave now while everyone was distracted. He used a quick burst of panic filled strength to push Ileana, Abraham, and Dorothy away from him, and then he quickly raced away from them with all of the speed that he could muster. He did not wish to fight this day.
The woman knew Sekhmet. She may contact her and bring her here. That was a risk that he was not willing to take. He would wait and plot in secret until he was sure that he would be able to stop even Sekhmet. Only then would he strike.
Carmilla and Nicoleta knew that the Daemon would turn on them next if they didn't leave quickly so they turned to mist and floated away on the wind right in the middle of fighting with Katherine and Victoria. They knew that they didn't stand a chance at survival otherwise.
Carmilla vowed that she and Nicoleta would return another day, and this time they would make sure to hunt down and destroy that traitor Alina. She would regret her actions today. No one ever just left their sisterhood. No one.
"I hope that you do not have cause to regret your actions this day, young one. Good bye to all of you," the Daemon said as he vanished right before their eyes.
"There's something that I haven't told you. I set a trap for Iceworld. I hired some pirates to attack them. You have to help them," Alina warned Michelle.
"What are we waiting for? Let's head to Iceworld," Donna said as everyone piled into Donna's TARDIS, and it dematerialized.
Anna Korvis had been standing there watching the whole thing. She had decided to come and see if Donna and her group were alright after she had heard fighting in the middle of the town. She felt guilty for calling them to come here. If they had anything happen to them as a result of staying here, it would have been all her fault. Luckily they all seemed to be okay when they had gotten into that strange machine.
She couldn't get over how it had just vanished into thin air like that though. That seemed so familiar to her and so did that strange wheezing groaning noise. It was all so very familiar. She knew that she had seen it all somewhere before but where?
Suddenly she could hear a voice telling her to free it. The voice actually seemed to be coming from the old fob watch that she always carried with her in her pants pocket. She had it with her ever since her parents had adopted her at the orphanage. They had told her that no one ever knew where it came from. They had always just assumed that whoever left her there must have left it with her.
She pulled the watch out of her pocket and heard the voice growing louder and louder. She held it to her ear as it continued to talk to her.
"Free me! Open the watch and free me!" the voice said over and over again.
"Who are you?" Anna asked the voice in fear.
"I am you of course but a more confident and stronger version of you. Open the watch and release me. Let your true self come forth," the voice demanded.
"I . . . ," Anna said as the watch began to shake in her hand.
"Do it!" the voice commanded.
Anna pushed the watch open, and then she was covered in energy all over her as her mind and body began to change. She finally understood at last why the spiders hadn't attempted to take over her mind. It was because she was already under the grip of another mind already, her true self hidden inside of the watch.
She became her real self again for the first time in over twenty years and began to laugh with joy. She had returned at last. Now she would find the Doctor wherever he was and make him realize at long last that he belonged with her. This time she would have him.
This time Eris would be with the Doctor forever!
Onboard Iceworld, Donna's TARDIS landed; and the others quickly got out in concern only to find Glitz just playing around with the space pirates. He continued to disable their ships or to put them into time loops, and he was enjoying every minute of it.
"Well, it doesn't look like we were needed here after all," Donna said.
Just as she said that, a massive warship suddenly appeared in front of Iceworld and began firing on it. Its blasts began to do heavy damage to the ship even through its powerful shields.
"What the?! I thought that these shields were supposed to be able to protect us against just about anything," Glitz complained to K'anpo.
"Even TARDIS shields aren't impenetrable," K'anpo said with a shrug as the ship continued to rock and shake with each new attack.
The image of a woman then appeared on the monitor screens all over the massive ship. The woman gave them all a malevolent smile as she said, "This is Xanxia, once and future Queen of Zanak. I am going to wipe your ship from space for daring to resist my men, and then I am going to use your ship's debris as an example to all of those who would dare to oppose me. Once you have all been taken out of my way, then I will proceed to the planet below and establish my empire there. The primitives who live there will not be able to withstand my forces. First, the Doctor's precious Earth will fall, and then I will find him and make him watch as I turn it into the home base of my new empire from which I will recapture my own world and then take over the entire galaxy!"
"This is an old enemy of the Doctor's I take it?" Dorothy asked Rose.
"Oh, yes. He told me about her once. She's no pushover that's for sure. She once stripped all of the resources from and then shrunk down whole planets to power a machine the sole purpose of which was to keep her aging and dying body alive so that she could shift her consciousness to a new holographic body that she actually believed that she could make permanent. It didn't work though, and the Doctor realized that she was just going to keep destroying planet after planet forever just to keep herself alive. He put a stop to her and was supposed to have destroyed her," Rose explained.
"Apparently he was wrong," Dorothy said.
"Do you think?" Rose said with a sigh.
Next: The Bad Wolves take on Queen Xanxia for the fate of the Earth.
