"Get the hell off my planet, bitch!"
The Ruiner raged at her, spitting and hissing as her hands, TARDIS-strong, tore at the monster's neck. Its flailing tendrils swatted away the ceiling above them; lumber and dust thundered around them in a maelstrom of anger and bile.
Turlough clutched the Doctor's head against his chest as he tried to cover the Timelord's body as the demigods before him fought their way up into the main house, flares of energy and shrapnel clattering to the basement floor, a hail, lethal, indiscriminate.
The sky was storybook blue and the grass was greener than Crayola Mountain Meadow.
Tegan stood by the crumbling wishing well in the back lawn of the house.
Or at least she thought she was standing…
The world was swallowing her.
No- the curly haired woman swallowed her. But that was now.
Then, when the old crone touched her hand, Tegan felt everything, ever and always, filling her body, wrapping round her soul, warm, tight, invigorating. The wrinkled old face before her glowed and filled with firm flesh, the hair streaking with black, the skin blossoming with rich browns and lines that softened, a smile that could melt a world.
The energy kept rushing up Tegan's arms, filling her, feeding her, suckling her heart, her will, fueling her limbs, drawing life from the woman, who gave freely. As she watched, the proud young woman before her grew even younger, smaller, shorter, until she was barely more than a girl, her arm outstretched, her face frozen in an expression of either awe or terror. All that remained was this tiny statue that hardened into rock, leaving no trace of the stooped old woman who had been.
Tegan realized that she had stopped breathing and took in a great, sucking breath, feeling her chest, heart and arms flood with strength that she had never dreamt of; across her back was strapped a sword of adamantine, curved like a scythe. Her heart raced with a burst of adrenaline that Tegan found it difficult to stand, sensing every hair on her body standing on end.
Then the curly red haired woman ate her.
Now, Tegan was running, running down a long white tunnel, running as she'd never run before, her legs possessed, pulsing with an indescribable energy that carried her down the impossible passage as if she were a raging flood, unstoppable, impossible, pushing aside reality itself so that she could run, run faster and faster and-
The tunnel spat her out again, landing on her thudding feet into a world full of glaring fluorescent lights and echoing steel grates.
Tegan was aware of her body moving, of a thousand thoughts processing simultaneously while she mentally sat in the center watching, taking it all in, her arms and legs dancing with motions that she'd always been capable of but never dared, with a grace and precision she'd wished for, but never attempted.
Her mind took in this new world in a flash: she saw the hanger, saw the Valourians, saw herself in mortal peril, saw the TARDIS. Saw the Doctor. Saw, even from this impossible distance, the fresh scars on the back of his neck.
And in that fraction of a moment, she understood.
She remembered being separated from the Doctor when the Valourians had interrogated her, remembered, him returning, hours later to help her escape, remembered running to the hanger, his puzzled state, his confusing comments as if he wasn't quite himself, not quite as confident as the Doctor she knew.
Tegan hadn't known before, but now knowledge was her blood and fury her light.
It was using the Doctor as a host, a shell, a pod. The Valourians had implanted it in him, using him as a vessel to get to her, to destroy her world. The dimensional forces ripping the system apart wasn't the device, it was the creature inside the Doctor, the Timelord oblivious, unaware.
Even before her feet touched the angry metal floor, Tegan knew what she had to do; she'd already done it. She plucked the rifle out of Turlough's limp grasp, sent him a quick 'thanks' and used the weapon to smash out the window of the observation deck and dived through, her sword drawn and flashing, her skin reveling in the form fitting black suit that encased her, protected her, encouraged her. She hacked her way through the press of aliens that planned to kill her world, her children, her home, laughing as she sliced through them, delighting in their death as she pressed closer and closer to the Doctor.
Grabbing the rifle out of mid-air she blasted away at the nearest aliens and held the Doctor, the thing, in her sights. Her finger hesitating momentarily- it was there, inside him, worming its way into his biomass, but it wasn't fully there, not completely manifested- it was incomplete. She couldn't destroy it, not yet.
Her eyes slipped to the TARDIS. She couldn't stop it, but she could slow it down.
Still blasting and slicing she leapt towards the timeship. All the while a familiar little voice was tickling her mind, asking her, horrified, confused and uncomprehending. Tegan used a fraction of a thought to send her a glib, placatory line, hoping she remembered it correctly and flashed herself a quick wink before slamming the TARDIS doors shut behind her.
The Ruiner laughed as it swatted Tegan through the living room wall, sending her skidding along the floor into the kitchen, linoleum melting under her transcendental form. Even as the beast roared, Tegan materialized behind him, sinking her hands deep into his incorporeal back, plunging, twisting, tearing in seven dimensions, searching, seeking…. Even as the form frothed and buckled beneath her it swelled in size as it began to pull itself fully into this dimension, long savage fingers brushing her exposed face, their touch dry, leathery, deathly.
Tegan backhanded the beast into the pantry with a savage yell
Beneath them, rocking gently back and forth, Turlough tried to sooth the Doctor's shuddering form, feeling his own clothes soak with the deep, sticky orange blood of the Gallefreyan- it was then that he saw the dust drifting down like ash from the wound in the ceiling above that he saw it; or rather didn't see it. The gray dust fluttered to a rest around a small space, a hollow, empty circle that sat about two feet off the floor, lightly outlining its invisible, melon like shape.
Gently resting the Doctor on the floor, Turlough began to crawl across the floor to the cloaked gaiacore control device.
Tegan stomped into the TARDIS Console Room, her mouth speaking words, ancient words, her mouth sore from the syllables and consonants that no human mouth should speak, the knowledge flowing out of her mind like sap from a maple. As the dematerialization noise filled the room, the panels on the console opened up in greeting, the transparent cylinder that enclosed the center column melted away, and the inner well of the timeship began to fountain ruby red temporal plasma. Tegan stepped up to the quasiorganic innards that sublimated beneath the metal controls and plunged her hands into the vessel's heart, white smoke twisting about her wrists.
"Miss Jovanka…" A polite voice began. "What, exactly, are doing?"
Kameleon, raw and undisguised, was standing in the doorway that led to the rest of the TARDIS, his shiny metal head was cocked just to the side.
Tegan spoke to him, not with words but with intent, with will, the power he understood, was bound to. Tegan was aware the thoughts were not her own, but knew what they intended, what had to be done- certain for the first time in her life.
Kameleon fell silent and strode quietly to the console, the flashing temporal energy bathing his silver skin a murderous, ember red as he put his hand on the debilitated chamelion circuit and accessed, replaced and modified it/himself, seeping into the TARDIS as a rapidly expanding flow of malevolent mercury as he became one with the ship.
Her hands still elbow deep in the ship's heart, Tegan began to feel the vessel, answer her call, reshaping itself, lapping onto her skin as it pulled itself inside out to wrap around her, embracing her, calling to her.
From another part of her mind, information, coordinates, leapt before her eyes and with a single thought, shaped in the simple form of a shiny silver key, she was off to the virgin end of the twenty-first century.
Above Turlough, Tegan leapt across the gaping hole, sparing a momentarily glance to see the convulsing form of the Doctor. With a flick of her wrist, a blob of black oil spat out of her hand and smacked the Doctor in the chest, the shimmering blackness filling his chest, pouring into the wound.
And then she was gone again, the crashing and screaming increasing in intensity as she rolled and fought out of sight.
The Doctor shuddered again and sank against the ruined cellar floor, unmoving and deathly pale.
Turlough carefully placed his hands against the invisible controls, the tips of his fingers tingling as they touched the spatially displaced object, his skin white, sweaty and shaking with panic.
He turned back to the Doctor, but the Timelord remained motionless and bleeding, the swirling oil encapsulating his chest.
Turlough turned back to the invisible device; was he supposed to destroy it or protect it? The Doctor had said that it controlled the anchor that pinned the Watchtower to the gaiacore yet was disabling exactly what that creature wanted?
And how the hell was he supposed to dismantle something he couldn't even see?
The crashing and screams grew thunderous in proportions and the world seemed to quake with their fighting, rocking the very earth beneath his feet.
A groan escaped Turlough as he stared into the empty space, desperately wishing that the Doctor, possessed or not, would wake up. Now.