From Devils

"Oh, I love that expression," Missy said, spinning to point at Adelaide's face. "It's not often that you get to be shocked, I've heard. I'm honored." She gave her a small curtsy as though they weren't standing in a crowd of humans surrounded by Cybermen in the middle of the day. "Though, I suppose I can't really blame you for being slow. Last time we met, well," she smirked, "you were in a watch."

"Stay away from her," the Doctor sneered, the fact Missy was in between them meaning he couldn't get close to Adelaide.

"Oh, protective of the protector, I was looking forward to seeing that." But Missy did take a step back, spinning with her arms spread to the gathered Cybermen. "Look at them! My boys." She unpinned her hat and put it at a Cyberman's feet as people pulled out their phones to take photos of the fancy shiny metal men. "Photos with the big metal men, one pound." A few coins were thrown into the hat. "Oh, honey!" she turned again, watching various selfies being taken, before holding out her device and flicking through live streams of similar scenes. "New York. Paris. Rome. Marrakesh. Brisbane. Glasgow. Everywhere. Anywhere. Me and my boys. We're going viral!"

"Would you like me to take a picture?" the woman from UNIT – Osgood, if Adelaide remembered right – strode forward. "Sorry, selfies are never as good, are they? And you're having a lovely moment. Hang on!" she grabbed the device, stepping back and letting the Doctor grab Missy's arm.

"No, just..."

"Nice bow tie," the Doctor said to Osgood.

Osgood smiled. "Bow ties are cool." She held up the device. "Big smiles, and...now!" she moved back as every human in the surrounding area pulled out various sorts of weapons, more UNIT soldiers arriving from surrounding buildings.

"Move, move, move!" some soldier ordered. "Stand by. Surround target. Hold back!"

Kate Stewart emerged from the crowd, hands held behind her back. "Afternoon. You've picked a lovely day for it." She looked to the Doctor. "My, don't you look shiny. Haircut?"

He smirked. "Bit of a trim."

"Might want to do your roots." She followed the Doctor's hand on Missy's arm. "The woman."

"Yes, ma'am."

Two soldiers stepped forward, pulling Missy away from the other two Time Lords. Then Kate turned to the gathered Cybermen. "Kate Stewart. Divorcee, mother of two, keen gardener, outstanding bridge player. Also Chief Scientific Officer, Unified Intelligence Taskforce, who currently have you surrounded."

"Human weaponry is not effective against Cyber technology."

"Sorry, you left this behind on one of your previous attempts." Kate threw what she'd been holding – a battered Cyberman head – at the Cyberman's feet. The Doctor and Adelaide moved to stand beside her. "So now that I have your attention, welcome to the only planet in the universe where we get to say this. He's" she nodded at the Doctor "on the payroll."

"Am I?"

Kate shrugged. "Well, technically."

"How much?"

"Shush." Kate smirked at him before turning to the Cybermen again. "Any questions?"

In unison, the Cybermen hit their chests, stomping their feet as well, and flew into the air.

"Oh my God!" Osgood gasped, still looking at St. Paul's instead of the sky full of Cybermen. "Is it supposed to do that? Is that new?"

"A sunroof on Saint Paul's?" the Doctor shot her a look. "Yes, I'd say that was new."

"There's going to be mass panic," Kate said. "Everyone in London can see that."

As she spoke, more Cybermen flew out of the dome. "Everyone in London just clapped and went 'whee'. Hush, I'm trying to count."

"Eighty-seven, I think," Osgood offered. "OCD."

"Ninety-one," Missy corrected. "Queen of evil."

Kate shook her head. "How could Saint Paul's be full of ninety-one Cybermen and nobody noticed?"

"Dimensional engineering. One space folded inside another. Bigger on the inside." The Doctor looked to Missy. "Easy if you're a Time Lord."

"Mostly deploying south," Osgood informed them, "smaller number east."

"And one straight up."

"So ninety-one isn't a coincidence?"

"Coincidences are rare." Adelaide took Missy's device from Osgood, looking through it.

"Osgood? Ninety-one. Explain."

Osgood frowned. "Ninety-one areas of significant population density in the British Isles."

The Doctor pointed at her, looking at something on the screen Adelaide showed him. "That's one Cyberman for every city and major town. It's happening everywhere, all over the world, right now."

Missy sighed. "Sweet planet, this. I think I might keep it."

"One Cyberman per city. What could they hope to accomplish?"

Osgood pointed at the sky. "Doctor!" The Cyberman that had flown straight-up had self-detonated.

"Has it exploded?"

Adelaide was saved by commenting that the explosion of the Cyberman was obvious by Missy speaking again. "More than that. Cybermen don't just blow themselves up for no good reason, dear. They're not human."

"If it's not just exploding, what is it doing?" Adelaide asked, earning her a smirk from Missy.

"Pollinating. Falling like rain into the cracks of the Earth. The dead are coming home, Doctor. All shiny and new. In twenty-four hours the human race as you know it will cease to exist."

The Doctor stalked to her. "What are you doing? Explain. Tell me now."

Before Missy could speak, a UNIT soldier fired a dart into her neck, making her crumble at the knees. "Oh! That was nice. Must do it again..." she went unconscious.

"Don't worry," Kate said to Adelaide. "First protocol states that the pair of you shouldn't be treated the same when you're here."

"Would you have drugged me if Adelaide wasn't here?" the Doctor asked, crossing his arms and looking incredibly annoyed that Missy had gone unconscious. Kate just stepped back, holding out a hand to lead them further down the street, likely to a car. The Time Lords, taking hands, stepped past her. "Guard the graveyards."

|C-S|

The Time Lords stood in an airplane hanger watching as the TARDIS was lifted onto the plane beside them. Kate had refused to let them pilot the TARDIS here themselves, not trusting the Doctor to run off like that.

Granted, she needn't have worried, as Adelaide would have refused to let the Doctor wander off with a mystery of this type, but apparently, there were a variety of protocols in place that Kate had to obey, and one of which was not letting the Time Lords go wandering in the TARDIS.

"Be careful with it," a man called to whoever was doing the lifting of the TARDIS. "Be careful! Take your time."

The Time Lords turned as Missy, locked into a box trolley, was rolled past them. "Who is she?" Kate asked, stepping up.

"Long story." The Doctor looked back to her. "Where's Clara?"

"Clara Oswald, your assistant?" Kate clarified.

"Adelaide's assistant, my carer, and our friend. She was with us in Saint Paul's."

Kate nodded. "The team's still on site but they've been unable to gain access to the building."

"I want her found and brought here. We need her with us."

"Then give the order." Kate gestured at the plane. "As soon as you're on board Boat One your word is law." She looked specifically at the Doctor then. "Quite literally." She stepped back again, letting the Time Lords enter the plane first.

The main cabin of the plane looked like a conference room. The Doctor looked around the room, seeing Osgood and another man. "Where are we going? Cloudbase?"

"You mean the Valient?" Kate asked.

"Cloudbase was Thunderbirds," Osgood corrected.

Kate still shrugged. "Too conspicuous. We need your location concealed, not advertised. From now on you are both moving targets."

The Doctor nodded at the portrait of Kate's father on the back wall. "Ah, I see you're bringing Daddy along, too. That's very sweet."

The other man in the room saluted the Time Lords. "Sir, ma'am."

"Oh, don't do that," the Doctor made a face. "You look like you're self-concussing, which would explain all of military history, now that I think about it."

"Colonel Ahmed, sir, ma'am," the man continued, as though the Doctor hadn't spoken. "Privileged to meet you both."

The Doctor looked him up and down. "Love your outfit, Colonel Ahmed. Are you in the Scouts? Are you a Man Scout? I didn't know they had those." Adelaide just pulled the Doctor by his shoulder to the side to get him a cup of coffee.

Ahmed stepped closed to Osgood. "It was Captain Scarlet."

"Sorry?"

"Not Thunderbirds."

Osgood's eyes widened. "Oh God, so it was..."

"My confidence is growing every minute," the Doctor called.

"The President and Secretary are on board," Kate said.

"Hang on a second," the Doctor looked over at her. "The President and Secretary? We don't want Americans bobbing around the place. They'll only start praying."

"Not the President of America, sir," Ahmed said. "The President and Secretary of Earth."

The Doctor took a seat at the head of the table, starting to drop a large quantity of sugar into his cup. "There aren't any."

"There are now."

Kate nodded. "The incursion protocols have been agreed internationally. In the event of full-scale invasion, an Earth President and Secretary are induced immediately, with complete authority over every nation-state. There is only one practical candidate for each position."

"That's your answer for everything, isn't it? Vote for an idiot."

Kate smiled. "If you say so, Mr. President. So long as you're on this plane, you're the Commander in Chief of every army on Earth. Every world leader is currently awaiting your instructions. You are the Chief Executive Officer of the human race. Any questions?"

"Adelaide's my secretary? Because she answers the phone?"

"She's your Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Education, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Labor..."

"I believe that's clear enough." Adelaide took a seat next to the Doctor.

"This is your captain speaking," the captain called over the speakers. "Please prepare for take-off."

|C-S|

Though Adelaide did not share the same extensive history with Missy as the Doctor, she shared a distinct connection with the other last Time Lord that the Doctor never could. She was the reason that Missy had escaped the war in the first place. Partially, the reason they were in this situation at all.

She and Missy had made a deal that to find each other once they were turned human, one that Missy – though she'd tried – hadn't been able to fulfill.

Now, they stood before her in the cargo hold, Osgood a bit behind them and two soldiers surrounding Missy. One of the soldiers injected Missy to bring her back to consciousness.

"Why are you still alive?" the Doctor asked the moment Missy had blinked awake.

"You" she was looking at the Doctor "saved me."

"We saved Gallifrey."

Missy shrugged as best she could. "Yes, Gallifrey too, I suppose. There's always collateral damage with you and me. It's our Paris."

"As far as we're aware, Gallifrey is lost in another dimension," Adelaide said, drawing the Time Lady's attention.

"Yes and no."

"Explain."

She smirked. "Yes, it's in another dimension. No, it's not lost."

"I assume you know where it is?"

Her smirk grew. "Yep! You know the best part about knowing?" she leaned forward as best she could, dropping her voice. "Not telling you."

"Mr. President, Ms. Secretary," Ahmed called through the speakers, "we're ready for you both up here."

"Remember all those years when all you wanted to do was rule the world?" the Doctor said to Missy. "On our way."

"Thank you, Mr. President."

The Doctor spread his arms. "Piece of cake."

He turned, walking to Osgood, but Adelaide stayed for a moment longer, watching Missy. If you just looked at her, if you were just a stranger, could you see the madness? Adelaide had seen it as Caroline and heard enough stories from the Doctor that she knew that Missy's madness was really unmatchable.

But, somehow, when Adelaide had encountered a young child resurrected by the Time Lords to be the perfect soldier when she refused to bring down an army, she hadn't seen it. She hadn't recognized it. Maybe it had just been because she hadn't been looking for it.

Would she have saved the Master if she'd known, then, what type of a person he was? How much the other Time Lord favored destruction and entropy?

Or would she have still helped the child because she'd wanted to spite the Time Lords?

Missy seemed to guess what Adelaide was thinking about and leaned forward again, whispering. "Now that you've seen the truth about me, it's time to see the truth about your precious Doctor." She looked between them. "You two are filled to the bursting with fixed events. Pity Aligning doesn't have to end up happily."

At that, Adelaide turned and joined the Doctor, who'd been distracting himself by talking to Osgood. "...wasn't even the worst." Osgood looked over at Adelaide as the Time Lady stepped up. "Doctor, Adelaide, there's something nobody's talking about."

"Which is?"

"The clouds caused by the exploding Cybermen, they haven't dispersed. They're still there. In fact, they've expanded and are covering almost all the land masses. We're all looking at the graveyards. Maybe we should be looking up? What do you think?"

In response, the Doctor glanced at Adelaide, the two nodding. "All of time and space?"

Osgood frowned. "Sorry."

He grinned. "Just something for your bucket list." He stepped back from the ladder, letting Adelaide climb up first...which earned him a waggle of Missy's eyebrows when he glanced back at her.

|C-S|

The Doctor had taken his seat at the head of the table again, Adelaide again at the seat closest to his side. They'd brought up a news report in order to get an update on the current situation on Earth. "Localized rain in the cemeteries has resulted in what can only be described as disturbances to the soil. Extraordinary eyewitness accounts are claiming that silver creatures are climbing from the graves."

"These scenes are being repeated everywhere," Kate told them. "Every cemetery, every mortuary, every funeral home, ever hospital, the dead are returning to life as Cybermen."

"The public are being advised to stay away from all cemeteries."

"We've done heat scans of some of the cemeteries and, in each case, only a handful of Cybermen have so far emerged. But every individual burial site is active."

Ahmed frowned. "Active?"

"Hatching."

"More are coming," Kate added. "Potentially millions."

"So the rain caused all that in just a few hours?"

Adelaide glanced at Ahmed. "It wasn't rain, it was pollen. Every particle of a Cyberman contains the plans to make another Cyberman. The only necessary next step is to make contact with compatible living organic matter and then, full conversion." For the majority of her lives, she hadn't known anything like this about Cybermen, but then she'd had a Cyberplanner in her head and there'd been a small exchange of information between the two of them.

"But if they have learned how to convert the dead..." the Doctor looked up at the monitor showing Missy in the cargo hold. "That's what she was doing. That's what 3W was for. She creates an all-new paranoia among the super-rich about dying. She exploits the wealth and the mortal remains of selected idiots so she can create a whole new race of Cybermen. Cybermen who can recruit corpses." He looked down to Ahmed. "Throw away your guns, Man Scout, it's all over. How can you win a war against an enemy that can weaponize the dead?"

Ahmed shook his head. "They're not attacking, apart from isolated incidents. They're just wandering about."

"They're newborns," Adelaide said. "They need time."

The Doctor turned to Kate. "Why were you there this morning? Why were you already attacking?"

"Been investigating 3W for a while, then we got a tip-off."

"From a woman with a Scottish accent," Ahmed added.

The Doctor nodded. "Can't play to the gallery unless there's a gallery, and here I am." He looked up at Missy again, who stuck out her tongue at the camera.

"Dead bodies don't have minds, but she's been upgrading dying minds to a hard drive for a long time."

"So she upgrades the hardware, and then she updates the software."

Kate looked at them. "What do you mean, a long time? How long?"

"I have no doubt that she has a TARDIS hidden somewhere," Adelaide said.

"How long, Adelaide?"

"How long has the human race had a concept of an afterlife?"

The Doctor and she exchanged a look. "Turns out the afterlife is real, and it's emptying. Every graveyard on planet Earth is about to burst its banks." He stood, starting to wander around the room.

"Mr. President, you need to get back in your seat."

He made a face. "I don't like being the president. People keep saluting. I'm never going to salute back." He paused before Kate's father's portrait, taking a flower from the vase.

Kate stepped closer. "Do you know, that was always my dad's big ambition, to get you to salute him just once."

He looked out the window. "He should've asked."

"What's out there?" Adelaide asked, still at the table.

"The clouds. Still there. So what else have they got?" Even from where Adelaide was sitting, she could see the Cyberman head as it appeared at the porthole, making the Doctor jump back. "There's a Cyberman out there on the fuselage. But on the plus side, it's not turbulence." He looked at the monitor again, gasping and making Adelaide look. Missy wasn't there. "She's out. Who let her out?"

Adelaide immediately stood, rushing to join the Doctor as he left to return to Missy. They managed to reach the cargo hold quickly despite the increasingly turbulent flight from the Cybermen. Immediately, they guessed at least part of what had happened; Osgood's glasses were broken on the floor and the woman herself nowhere to be found.

It was confirmed when Missy, and Missy alone, stepped out from behind the TARDIS. "Oh, she was really scared. It's classic. Have you got any more friends I can play with?" the plane swerved, all of them stumbling but managing to stay upright. "Oh, oooh, ask me."

"Shut up!" the Doctor snapped.

"Ask me!" Missy leaned against the TARDIS. "Come on, you know you want to. You want to know what my plan is. You'll be surprised. I've got a gift for you, Doctor. You know, I've been up and down your timeline, meeting all those silly people who died to keep you alive. And you know what I worked out? What you really need."

The Doctor frowned. "For what?"

"To know that you're just like me!" The TARDIS phone, not Adelaide's, rang. "Oh, and now it begins." Missy grinned. "Doctor, I do believe you're on call. Miss Oswald expects. Who else but the girl who's got your number?" she held a hand to her mouth in a mock of shock. "Whoops!"

"That was you," Adelaide said, remembering when Clara had, somehow, managed to call the TARDIS phone.

"Computer helpline, love," Missy put on a strong cockney accent. "That's the one. Best helpline in the universe."

"You put us together."

"I kept you together. Gave you precious Adelaide," she gestured at the Time Lady, "put a nice advert in the paper."

"Why?"

"Cos she's perfect, innit? The control freak and the man who should never be controlled." She smirked. "Though, the real question is which of your girls is that? Which Oswald? You'd go to hell if either of them asked, and one did. The phone's ringing, Doctor. Can you hear that? Now that is the sound of your chain being yanked. Hell, Doctor!" She stepped back, letting the Doctor step forward to take the phone from the front of the box, and mimicked Clara's voice. "Help me, Doctor. Help me. Help me, Doctor."

He answered the phone, Adelaide stepping close enough that she was able to hear the conversation. "Clara?"

"With Danny."

"Danny's dead, Clara," Adelaide told her.

"Not yet. Not quite. But he wants to be."

Adelaide did, honestly, have to close her eyes at that moment because she knew exactly why Danny, converted into a Cyberman, would want death. Why she'd wanted it.

"Clara." They could hear someone crying. "Clara?"

"He's a Cyberman. Doctor, Danny's a Cyberman. And he's crying. Adelaide, he feels it. He's crying."

"Clara, don't do it." The Doctor took Adelaide's hand. "Just don't do it!"

"It's in his chest. He says it's an inhibitor. It can delete emotion or something."

"We already know what it does," Adelaide said. "If it's turned on, he'll become a Cyberman."

"He's already a Cyberman."

"No, he isn't. Not yet."

Clara sounded like she was crying too. "He's hurting because I hurt him and he wants it to stop."

The Doctor tightened his grip on Adelaide's hand. "Stop the pain and he'll kill you!"

"Look, are you two going to help me, because I can't do this alone."

"We're not going to help you commit suicide."

"Look, the TARDIS can home in on this call, right? Either you help me, or you leave me alone."

"Clara?" there was no response. "Clara, no..." he lowered the phone, Clara having thrown the phone away.

"Doctor!" Kate called, struggling to climb into the cargo hold. "The Cybermen are in. The plane's going down."

Missy turned to Kate, looking excited. "Oh, great. It's the daughter one. Do you like her? I like her." She pressed something on her wrist, making the plane swerve and them all grab onto nearby straps. Another button made the hatch open and Kate was sucked out, screaming.

"Why did you do that? You didn't have to do that!"

"Oh, don't be so selfish," Missy scoffed. "I'm going to miss her, too. In fact, you know what? Just for that, I'm leaving." She lifted her wrist to her mouth. "Boys, blow up this plane and, I don't know, Belgium, yeah? Kill some Belgians. Might as well. They're not even French. Bye!" she waved, disappearing in a teleport.

A/N: Honestly, Adelaide and Missy together is my favorite thing :)