Again...duh duh duh

Pain. Searing, blinding agony. Agony the like of which Andy had never felt before. As soon as those three words left the Doctor's mouth, Andy's vision blacked out. She could see nothing, she could feel nothing. It was like she was no longer in her own body. But she felt some kind of movement, something shifting inside, something that had been hidden for long enough, finally taking control, finally coming to the front.

'The Doctor was right,' she thought, 'It's in here.' She struggled, although she wasn't sure how. She could no longer feel a body to move, but she remembered having one and conjured it up in her mind's eye. Her thoughts seemed to be drifting away, no matter how hard she tried to keep them to her. She envisioned her mind and tried to trap them inside. She had to fight this thing.

"Why?" the slithery voice came out of everywhere, as if surrounded by it. Andy froze, either in her mind or in her pretend body, which she had been thrashing around with. She remembered that voice, the voice that had called her into the cave, saying it was lost and needed help, a voice she had hoped to never hear again.

"Why?" It repeated, "Why fight me? You are a tiny speck of dust compared to me. You are nothing, you cannot defeat me."

"Because this is mine," she replied, shouting it into the darkness surrounding her, "This was mine, long before it was yours. Give it back." A chuckle came from the darkness surrounding her, but it wasn't amused. She felt a rush of something, almost akin to being slapped across the face. It was obviously meant to shut her up, and indeed it did, as the voice and the movement that went with it slid past her.

She struggled, before she realised that her conjured body was now frozen, her mind barely thinking any thoughts. It had paralysed her so that it could take control.

"No!" she screamed in her mind. She pushed, trying to move her limbs, trying to do something. She lay in limbo for what seemed like eternity. She had to find something. Anything. Anything she had that it didn't.

Instantly her mind reached out for her power. For that connection to something so much bigger than her.

And she found it.

She pulled it to her instantly, her mind grasping for something familiar, something that reminded her of herself. It was an intrinsic part of who she was, and nobody could take it from her. She let it flow through her, through the body she had conjured up, making her bones and blood sing, up into her mind which opened out just in time to hear it say,

"…and you definitely shouldn't have called me," She paused her power, just in case it had sensed what she was doing. It didn't appear to have noticed at all, too busy riding its arrogance at having conquered her. Andy herself couldn't really see too well anyway, it was like looking though an opaque material. She could see the outlines, not the details. She saw the Doctor's mouth move, although she didn't quite have the control yet to hear what he said. But she saw his eyes widen in fear and horror, and knew that it was nothing good. She felt it laugh, using her mouth. She tried to stop it but she didn't want to risk letting it know she wasn't completely paralysed. Then she felt it use her mouth again,

"I have her power, Doctor. When I absorbed her mind, I absorbed her power. I can do everything she could, and more, because I do not fear the consequences. You know I have those vines around your ship. I'll suck her dry of power if you don't take me where I want to go."

"LIAR!" Andy shouted, suddenly uncaring if it could hear her in here. She had not been absorbed, she had fought back with everything she could, but it still wasn't enough. But it didn't have her power either, it was…bluffing. It wanted something. Something only the Doctor could give it. Then she heard it say,

"I want what she wanted, to get off this rock. I want what she wants, to travel the universe. Imagine it, Doctor. Every living person, from the beginning of time right to the very end. So many hosts. So many events that could have been changed, had people only the will to do it. So many civilisations that would never be formed because they would not survived, so weak were they. So many things I will change with each new host…and you shall deliver me to each of them."

"NO!" Even if she wasn't a Time Lord, Andy understood that giving this ancient entity control over all of space and time would end in disaster. She had to fight it. She had to beat it. But how?

She began searching with her mind, casting out little lines, literally fishing for information. At first, nothing. It seemed to be impenetrable. She began casting them quicker. And then, a chink, a tiny hole. Looking closer she felt the deceit. It knew it was lying, it knew that she was here, it still needed her. Because without her, it had no power. She began kicking at the chink with her conjured feet, hitting and punching with her conjured hands, trying to break down the opaque wall that separated her from her true body. She pushed herself into the chink, made it wider. And slowly, it began to open.

Suddenly she could breathe, properly breathe, with her own lungs again. She drew in a sharp breath, nearly making her body double over. She gritted her teeth and began to push her awareness down through her body, imagining her conjured body shoving through the hole she had made in the wall. She pushed her consciousness up towards her head, feeling as though she were climbing a chimney on the outside, with only the bare bricks to hold on to, and if she made a wrong movement she would fall back down. She also pushed some downwards, trying to connect to her power. Her knees, her real knees, could barely take the strain and they buckled. Her instincts quickly made her arms her own again and they took her weight as she fell forwards onto them. Her palms hurt where they had struck the ground, but it was real, the pain was real and completely her own. It was screaming inside her head, louder than anything she had ever heard, trying to push its way back to the front. She winced at the strain of keeping it back. It hadn't been lying, it was incredibly powerful, but the body was still hers, and she wasn't going to let it go. Her head hurt with the magnitude of trying to keep it back, trying to keep herself forward and in the present, so much so that she almost missed the disbelieving gasp of,

"Andy?"