CHAPTER 7

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RETURN OF THE THREE CLARAS

"Clara has a sister?" Jamie asked in bewilderment.

"No, this is another version of Clara that is a Time Lady who's regenerated and changed her appearance," the Doctor said.

"She's a Clara who looks nothing like Clara and isn't even human?" Jamie asked as he started getting a headache.

"It's complicated," the Doctor said.

"What isn't around you, Doctor?" Jamie asked.

"None of this is important right now, Jamie. I'm more worried about Clara's safety. Cydonia and the Great Intelligence have been staring at each other for several minutes now without speaking. Are they having some kind of psychic war right under our noses?" Polly asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid that they are. They're fighting for Clara's mind," the Doctor said in a serious voice.

"Is there anything that we can do to help?" Jamie asked in concern.

Ever since Victoria had returned he wasn't as in love with Clara anymore as he had been, but he still cared about her deeply. She had already become one of his closest friends in only a short time, and he'd rather die himself than allow any harm to come to her.

"Nothing I'm afraid. It's up to Cydonia now. Don't worry about her though. She has the mental strength of an untold number of Clara's echoes to back her up. She can unite all of their minds together and draw upon their collective brain power when she has to. She should be more than a match for the Intelligence already. At least I hope so anyway," the Doctor said in a worried voice.

"Maybe we could add our brainpower to hers somehow," Zoe proposed.

"I think that we should stay out of it, Zoe. We may distract Cydonia if we try to help her now and cause the Intelligence to gain the upper hand. Besides that, only another Clara could enter into this gestalt of hers anyway," the Doctor said.

"That's a wise decision, Doctor. They're almost even right now in their fight, and anything could tip the balance over to one side or the other. Anything at all," Victoria suddenly said.

"How do you know that?" the Doctor asked even though he suspected that he already knew.

"I'm linked to the Intelligence somehow, Doctor. Maybe it's because he made me his vessel for a while or it could be because he apparently made me into one of his permanent back-up vessels by stopping me from aging. I have a certain sense of what he's thinking at all times now ever since he reappeared. I kept having thoughts and feelings from another mind in mine, and I didn't know what it was at first. I thought maybe I was losing my mind, and then when the Intelligence revealed that he had possessed Clara I realized that it was him," Victoria said.

"Why didn't you tell us this, Victoria?" Jamie asked.

"I didn't want you to think that I was under his control again because I'm not. At least I don't think I am. I just didn't want you to become suspicious of me. I'm sorry," Victoria said.

"It's alright, Victoria. I know that you're not under his control. The Intelligence doesn't have enough spare brain power left to control you at the moment. From the look on Clara's face, it's taking everything he's got just to hold back Cydonia," the Doctor said.

"Maybe we could use this to our advantage somehow. What if she can influence the Intelligence or attack him in some way?" Polly proposed.

"I could try," Victoria offered.

"No, it's too dangerous. The Intelligence is a cosmic entity of unimaginable power from the universe before this one. If you try to attack the Intelligence, you could blow out your mind. Don't even think about it, Victoria. You can tell us what you're receiving from him, but don't try anything else. Promise me that you won't," the Doctor said firmly.

"I won't. I promise," Victoria said reluctantly.

"It's just as well, Victoria. If I ever lost you now especially after getting you back again, I don't know what I'd do," Jamie said.

Victoria smiled at him as she said, "I won't attack him. I promised the Doctor."

"Good," Jamie said with a look of relief on his face.

Neither of them noticed that they had started to hold hands in that moment. Polly, however, did and pointed it out to Zoe who nodded and smiled. The Doctor, as usual, was completely oblivious.

Meanwhile while all of this was going on around her, Cydonia was busy trying her best to free Clara from the Intelligence. She had encountered a massive barrier around Clara's mind from the start and had been relentlessly battering against it for almost fifteen minutes now with all of the mental power that she had from every version of Clara that had ever lived. All of them were giving it their all in order to save their original self.

It still wasn't enough though. The Intelligence was simply too powerful for them to overcome even with all of them working together at once.

They needed the help of someone else. She had just the person in mind too. This was someone who was close enough to being another Clara without actually being their Clara herself that she could easily join into their telepathic gestalt. It didn't hurt that she was a temporal anomaly and a Guardian of Time either. She needed Oswin.

The trouble was that she couldn't contact her. Not without sacrificing enough brainpower that she could give the Intelligence a chink in her armor that he could break through and attack her with. Then she noticed Victoria's mental presence nearby and how she had some kind of partial link to the Intelligence. She finally had her way to contact Oswin.

"Doctor, Cydonia wants you to get Oswin to come here to Gallifrey to help her. You've got to contact her right away," Victoria said.

"Are you sure that it's Cydonia that wants this and not the Intelligence?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes, I'm sure. She needs another Clara to help her beat the Intelligence," Victoria said.

"Alright, I'll bring her right here then," the Doctor said as he raced to the console and called her on the phone.

It was only seconds later that Oswin teleported inside of the Console Room still holding her cell phone in her hand. She quickly put it up and raced over to Cydonia's side.

As she did so, her gauntlets and all of her other equipment including her phone suddenly stopped working and short circuited in a burst of smoke as Oswin said, "That was trying to happen even before I left. I'm lucky that I got here."

"It's the Intelligence. Now that you're here, he's trying to prevent you from leaving or calling for help. He's just blocked all communications from the TARDIS too. We're going to have to stop him by ourselves now," the Doctor said.

She looked at the Doctor questioningly as she asked, "What do I do? How can I join in and help her?"

"Place your hands on the sides of Cydonia's head, Oswin, and reach out to her mind. She'll do the rest," The Doctor said.

Oswin did as he said and suddenly found herself joining Cydonia in an incredible mental landscape that looked like it was made up of the night sky as it twinkled with stars. In front of them was what looked to her to be a massive stone wall that she realized was the mental barrier keeping them from freeing Clara's mind from the Intelligence.

"Cydonia, I'm here," Oswin said.

"Hold my hand, Oswin. We've got to combine our minds together. We can do this. We can save her. I know we can," Cydonia said.

Oswin took her hand and gasped in fear as she could feel her hand merge with Cydonia's. She could already feel her mind being absorbed into hers as well.

"Don't fight me, Oswin. We have to become one in order to free her. I promise I'll let you go as soon as I save Clara. You can trust me," Cydonia pleaded.

Oswin nodded and soon found herself merging with Cydonia. Cydonia was shocked when after the two of them became one she suddenly felt completely different. Instead of the war weary damaged personality that she had up until now she had become more like herself than she had in a long time. It was like she felt reenergized and youthful once more just as she had once felt long ago back in the days when she had first met a young Theta Sigma.

She was surprised at this but reasoned that it was probably because she had merged with the original Clara. Oswin was always able to do the impossible after all, and it looked like she had done it once again as Cydonia began to smile for the first time since the Time War. She immediately set to work piercing the barrier surrounding Clara's mind as she started battering it with everything that she had.

The barrier now shattered as Cydonia effortlessly passed through it. She found the Intelligence looking at her in shock as he said, "That's not possible. What are you?"

"In one way or another, I've been trying to find the answer to that my entire life. If you had asked me that question just a minute ago, I would have said Cydonia. Honestly though I never really knew. I knew who I was supposed to be, but I never really felt like her. Until now. Now I finally know who I am at last. My name is Clara Oswald, and I am here to reclaim the last missing piece of myself. I won't stop until you give me back my sister. I will be whole even if I have to rip your entire mindscape apart and bring it crashing down around you piece by piece," Cydonia threatened.

"You won't stop me now not when I'm so close to finally killing the Doctor once and for all. I will have my revenge," the Intelligence ranted.

"Suck it up, GI. A wise man once told me that all things have their time and all things end. Your time already ended back on Trenzalore. You can't cheat death, Intelligence. You had your chance, and now it's over. It's time to quietly leave the stage. There's no more curtain calls for you I'm afraid," Cydonia said.

She released a massive burst of mental energy against the Intelligence, and he began screaming as he was pounded by the minds of a thousand upon a thousand scattered fragments of Clara Oswald's soul. Each and every one of them were intent on one thing and one thing only. Stopping the Intelligence once and for all and reuniting with their missing self.

The Intelligence knew that he would soon fall before this mental onslaught if he stayed here. Luckily he had an escape plan already in mind, and she was only a couple of feet away from him in the real world.

He immediately attempted to transfer himself to Victoria's body, and she started screaming immediately as she warned, "Doctor, watch out! He's trying to take me over again!"

"No, you won't let him. I know you won't. Fight him, Victoria. You can do it," Jamie said as he squeezed Victoria's hand hard

Victoria smiled at him as she did the best that she could. She started resisting the Intelligence with everything that she had in her even as Cydonia continued to fight it inside of Clara's brain. The Intelligence quickly found himself caught between two bodies as forces within both of them tried to keep him from possessing them at once.

He realized that he was being ripped apart on one end and had become so weak that he couldn't gain access on the other one. He was now only moments away from having his mind shredded into pieces.

The Intelligence had become so weak now that Clara's psyche was finally able to break free from him and join with Cydonia. Cydonia smiled at her as they now merged together into one being.

For the moment, there was no Oswin or Cydonia. Now there was only Clara. She was a complete and unified Clara for the first time in a very long time.

"Hey, Intelligence, it's time for you to call it a day I think. Let me hand you your eviction papers. You're hereby to leave these premises forthwith. The previous owner has returned, and she's taking out the trash!" Clara said as she used all of her considerable mental power to start shredding the Intelligence's psyche into atoms.

"No! This cannot be the end. I can't be defeated by a mere human," the Intelligence protested.

"There's nothing mere about her. She's quite impossible. She always was." The Doctor's voice said inside of Clara's mindscape.

"I've done it, Doctor. He's finished," Clara said proudly.

"Not completely you haven't. He's trying to escape back into Victoria now. You have to stop that from happening," the Doctor said.

"Calm down, Chin Boy. I'm on it. I'm new at this goddess stuff. I mean I know its old hat to you with Rose around, but I'm still a newbie. You have to expect there to be a bit of a learning curve," Clara said as she increased her assault against the Intelligence.

"I won't let it end this way. I will have my revenge," the Intelligence said from Victoria's mouth now.

Victoria under the Intelligence's control raced to the controls of the TARDIS and immediately plunged the TARDIS into chaos as she hit a button on the console that sent them all flying to the ground as the TARDIS lurched out of control. The Doctor could feel the TARDIS being completely yanked out of time and space and had absolutely no idea where the Intelligence was sending them.

Wherever it was, he knew that it couldn't be good.

"No, you don't get to win that way, GI. You know what they say, don't you? You can't make a soufflé without breaking a few eggs along the way. Well guess what, Humpty Dumpty? You're about to take a huge fall," Clara said as she quickly got to her feet and started incinerating what was left of the Intelligence by letting him have it with every bit of power that she had at once.

"No!" the Intelligence screamed in defiance one last time as he felt himself getting spread across the universe like the grains of sand on a beach and completely lost the ability to think.

The Great Intelligence was no more.

His actions were still having consequences though even with him gone. Victoria and Clara both fainted from the exertion of fighting the Intelligence and Cydonia and Oswin quickly regained their minds once again only to pass out themselves in turn. The Doctor meanwhile was too busy to check on them as he raced to the TARDIS console to try to regain control of it before they were plunged into who knows what disaster thanks to the Intelligence's last actions.

The Doctor managed to stabilize the TARDIS finally and landed it. He checked the console to discover in shock for the first time just where the Intelligence had sent them to.

"Doctor, where are we now?" Jamie asked.

"The Intelligence took us to someplace very familiar to you and Zoe, Jamie. We're in the Land of Fiction," the Doctor said.

"Well, get us out of here now before it's too late," Jamie said in alarm.

"That's what I'm trying to do, Jamie, but I can't. The Intelligence did something to the controls, and I can't dematerialize. Until I can fix the TARDIS or Oswin wakes up, I'm afraid that we're all going to be stuck here for who knows how long," the Doctor said in an ominous voice.

Next: Can the Doctor escape the trap that the Intelligence has landed him in? Will Victoria and the three Claras ever wake up? What unexpected side effect has all of this had on Victoria anyway? Oh, and wait until you and the others discover the horror that the Land of Fiction has waiting for them as the Doctor and his companions confront its version of certain popular books of today including ones with sparkly vampires in them.