CHAPTER 17

I do not own Doctor Who and I am making no profit off of this.

Thank you for all of your favorites, follows, story alerts, and reviews!

SHADOW OF THE CYBERMEN

"Doctor!" Polly screamed as the Time Lord Cybermen carried her off too now to join Jamie in Krail's temporary conversion center.

"Let them go. If you want revenge, you can have me. Let the others go," the Doctor said in a furious voice.

"I've already told you, Doctor. I am not interested in revenge. I simply want to wipe out all of the obstacles standing in the way of the Cybermen's dominance of the universe and that includes you and your friends. Emotion has nothing to do with it. You are all too dangerous to the continued survival of the Cybermen to be allowed to exist. It is only logical," Krail said in his eerie not quite human voice.

"Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better," the Doctor said as he continued to fight for his life with Rose and Clara standing on opposite sides of him and guarding him from both sides.

"Your feelings are irrelevant," Krail said as he grabbed Zoe in a tight grip and started to carry her off as she screamed in terror.

"No!" the Doctor shouted as things just kept getting worse and worse right before his eyes.

Rose used her power to rip a door from a nearby wall and hurl it straight into Krail's head in an attempt to stop him. Krail easily disintegrated the door with a single gesture though and continued to move on undisturbed.

At least until he ran up against yet another Rose who seemingly appeared out of nowhere and immediately socked him in the jaw. This second Rose, a duplicate created out of Vortex energy that was animated by her mind, began to rain one punishing blow after another against him as she tried to prevent him from stealing yet another friend of theirs away.

"You're just full of tricks aren't you?" Clara said to Rose with a grim smile on her face.

"You haven't seen nothing yet, mate," Rose said as she concentrated and began tearing the entire room apart and hurling pieces of it at Krail and the other Cybermen from all sides in a violent maelstrom filled with deadly debris.

"Your power is great. More than a match for what I possess, but it doesn't matter. We anticipated your interference and accounted for it. The Cybermen are nothing if not prepared for every possibility that might occur," Krail said.

"What's he babbling on about?" Mikaela asked in annoyance.

"He is talking of me, child. I am the shadow to your guardians' light, and I am finally here to avenge the defeat of my master at last. Today is the day that Gallifrey finally falls forever never to rise again!" The voice of the Shadow said from nowhere and yet everywhere at once.

Just as soon as he had spoken the Shadow suddenly appeared out of nowhere and began turning the full fury of Rose's artificial maelstrom back on her and her friends. They all had to concentrate on keeping themselves from being impaled by the enormous mass of debris being hurled at them with all of the speed of a cyclone and could therefore no longer stop Krail from abducting Zoe.

There was also nothing to stop the other half Cybermen from grabbing Romana, Charley, Karen, Mikaela, and Victoria either in the confusion caused by his sudden unexpected onslaught. The Doctor's eyes widened in horror as he realized that all of his friends were being systemically stolen away from him right in front of his eyes, and there didn't seem to be anything that he could do to stop it.

He tried to reach them even through the hail of debris that continued to be sent his way as he ducked and dodged the Shadow's continued assault, but he could already see them being taken further and further away from him by the moment. He still kept going though as he tried to come up with something, anything, that he could do to stop them.

As the Doctor struggled to reach his friends in time to save them from a horrible fate, Rose meanwhile had confronted the Shadow one on one and was doing her best to put a quick stop to him once and for all. She knew she had to end this as soon as possible because she was rapidly running out of time as this entire situation was rapidly disintegrating into complete chaos around her even as she watched.

She could already see the others being carted away, and the Doctor was in massive danger from her own redirected attack. She had no idea where Clara was. She had completely disappeared. Things were going from bad to worse, and she knew that she had to take a stand here and now or Gallifrey really was lost.

"So don't tell me. It was you all along wasn't it? You were the one mucking around with Victoria's mind and slowly stealing her powers away from her all along so that you could give them to Krail. Despite what old Frightface said this really is all just about revenge isn't it? You're still angry at her for stopping you from escaping the Land of Fiction. Am I right, Mate?" Rose said as she continued attacking him with every bit of power at her command.

He had somehow grown much stronger, and she was afraid that she already knew the answer why. Someone was helping him. He had joined forces with someone. He was being helped by a whole lot of someones if her enhanced senses were right about the multiple presences that she felt all around him.

"Oh, it's so much more than just simple revenge, Rose Tyler. I needed to cause Victoria those problems with her mind so that Eris would send her away to you, and I would be left all alone with her. I succeeded admirably. Her daughter Andromeda in now traveling with her sister Jenny more and more often these days, and Victoria and her friends are now with you and the Doctor. Now that I have her all to myself, I am finally free to act to ensure that it stays that way. I will finally destroy you, the Doctor, Victoria, and all of Gallifrey so that no one will stand between me and my new mistress. Once I finally have her all to myself that is when I will finally act because I recently made an alliance with a new group of friends for even greater power in order to help me overcome her and steal her power and position away from her. Then I will bring back my true master to this universe and chaos will reign!" The Shadow ranted with maniacal glee.

"So basically it's back to the same old nuttiness as usual, yeah?" Rose asked with a defiant smile that she definitely wasn't feeling on the inside. On the inside she was a bundle of nerves as she worried about everyone.

"Your flippant tone won't save you. You have absolutely no idea what you're dealing with. Not this time. A new age is coming that you will not be alive to share in. Soon the Time of the Wolf will be over with forever!" the Shadow said as he suddenly summoned up a powerful wind and hurled Rose away from him with herculean strength.

"Blimey! Even if all of this world beating stuff blows up in your face, you could still go into business as a weatherman. You'd make a fortune," Rose managed to joke as she struggled to keep from being hurled off of the planet by the Shadow's new strength.

What was going on here? Who was helping him and why?

The Doctor was having much better luck as he managed to find a way to use his sonic screwdriver to overload the partially converted brains of the Cyber Time Lords and was slowly defeating them one at a time and sending them into the Cybermen's version of a sleep mode. He had already saved Romana and Karen that way, but he was still far from rescuing the others not to mention reaching the conversion chamber to rescue Jamie and Polly.

Then things suddenly became even worse as Krail returned with a partially converted Jamie and Zoe. The Doctor watched in horror as his two friends slowly walked toward him with a dead look in their eyes and with parts of them already replaced with cybernetic bits and pieces all throughout their bodies so that they looked almost more robotic now than human.

"Kill him so that the others can join you in your freedom from the flesh," Krail ordered.

"Jamie! Zoe! I'm so sorry!" The Doctor said as they slowly approached him walking now more like automatons instead of human beings.

"Sorrow is meaningless. All that matters now is joining us. Allow us to give you the ultimate gift, Doctor. The gift of final freedom from emotion. You will never have to feel sorrow ever again. Won't that be worth it?" Jamie said in a cold emotionless voice.

"What about love, Jamie? Your love for Victoria. Do you want freedom from that too?" the Doctor asked.

Jamie's face began to betray a hint of emotion for the first time now as his lower lip began to quiver. The Doctor smiled with relief that his friend wasn't quite gone just yet.

"That's right, Jamie. You don't because you love her more than anything. You have to fight it, Jamie. Fight it and don't let Krail take her away from you. He can't if you don't let him. Those are your emotions and your feelings. Don't ever let him destroy them. Fight back, Jamie. Fight it!" The Doctor encouraged him.

Zoe too now began to betray emotion as she looked concerned at the look of pain on Jamie's face. She slowly moved her arm upwards and touched his shoulder in a gesture of comfort that made the Doctor smile.

"Do you see, Krail? My friends aren't that easy to control because I only pick the best. They're far too strong for you. You'll never take them over completely," the Doctor said in triumph.

"Yes, I see that you have indoctrinated your friends in the false belief that emotion equals strength. It does not. Only cold, hard logic and brutal strength will prevail here today. If your friends will not fall to me, then they will die along with the rest of you," Krail said as he silently ordered the Cyber Time Lords to attack them all.

"I don't think so, Metal Boy," Clara said as she suddenly emerged from the shadows and instantly assumed a fighting pose.

"Clara, what are you doing?! I know that you've fought a lot of Cybermen in nine hundred years, but this one's different. This one is more dangerous than any of them. Stay away from him!" the Doctor said with deep concern permeating his voice.

"This one is your favorite, isn't she? I may not feel emotion, but I can still detect it especially in such quantity. Perhaps I will finally convince you that emotions are a weakness when I crush her to death in front of you with the power of the Great Intelligence," Krail said as he ran towards her at top speed.

Clara smiled as she said, "Oh, are you in for a huge surprise, Metal Boy! I've been kicking the Great Intelligence's tail since the beginning of time."

She began to use her sonic necklace to bombard Krail with an assault that she hoped would scramble whatever internal circuitry that he might possess even as she prepared to meet him head on. She attempted to grab Krail's arm and threw him over her head with it as soon as he came close enough only he completely surprised her by grabbing her arm instead before she could even touch him.

"Clara!" the Doctor screamed in terror as Krail held Clara over his head and began to apply all of his incredible strength to her back in an attempt to break her in half.

Clara screamed in agony as she could feel the bones in her back beginning to give way. She knew that if she didn't stop Krail right now that she would be crippled soon or worse. It was now or never as she decided to do something that she had never done before for fear of what it might do to her.

Clara's eyes and hands began to glow with energy as she said, "Let me give you something for that headache, Metal Boy."

"Even in your death throes you are illogical, human. What headache?" Krail asked.

"This one!" Clara said as a massive burst of silver Vortex energy flowed out of her hands and into Krail's head blowing it apart in one blast.

Suddenly all of the partially converted Cybermen stopped in their tracks as they awaited further orders that would never come. Krail's now completely lifeless (not to mention headless) body hit the ground and so did Clara right alongside it.

"You did it, Clara! You singlehandedly beat them! My Impossible Girl came through for me again!" the Doctor said in excitement.

Then his face turned to one of horror and concern as he saw that Clara wasn't moving. She was lying there looking like she was . . . He wouldn't even allow himself to think such a thing because she was just like a sister to him. He immediately ran to her side and began scanning her with his sonic screwdriver as Mikaela said in a scared voice, "Is she going to be alright?"

"I don't know. She's badly hurt, Mikaela. Krail almost snapped her spine, and I'm showing massive internal damage all throughout her body that he couldn't have caused. I think she damaged all of the cells in her body by calling on the power of the Vortex. Her body's just not designed for it like Rose's is. Why did you do that, Clara?" the Doctor said as he gently stroked Clara's hair.

"She was going to die anyway even if she didn't. At least this way she saved everyone else," Mikaela said because she knew exactly how Clara thought since she had basically known her her entire life.

Would that still even happen now if she died right here and now? That meant that she couldn't die, right? Mikaela hoped against hope that that was true.

Then she smiled as she saw a silver glow began to slowly start surrounding Clara's body.

"What the?!" Karen said as she and others all watched this in disbelief.

"Doctor, is she doing what I think she's doing?" Polly asked as she finally managed to find the others again after freeing herself when the Cyber Time Lords holding her captive stopped moving.

"Polly, I'm so glad that you're alright! I didn't think that he'd hurt you yet since he seemed to want you to watch what he did first. You can't tell me that he didn't have any emotions. That was good old fashioned revenge right there. Definitely not cool," the Doctor said as he hugged Polly tightly with relief.

Polly smiled at him in appreciation and returned his hug as she said, "Thank you, Doctor. You never did answer my question though. Is she regenerating?"

"Of course not, Polly. Only Time Lords regenerate," the Doctor said as he continued to smile from ear to ear that all of his friends seemed to be alright now or at least soon would be.

Now all he had to worry about was Rose, but he was sure that she was alright. She had beaten the Shadow before after all. No one could hurt Rose. She was practically indestructible. There was a reason that she was the first person that he had called his Impossible Girl after all. She could always pull off the impossible no matter how much the odds were against her.

Just like Clara he hoped.

"If she's not regenerating, then what is she doing?" Polly asked still confused.

Mikaela smiled as she said, "Watch. She does this all the time in the future."

Clara finally exploded outwards with Vortex energy as soon as the glow around her finally covered her completely. As soon as the glow faded, Clara's eyes opened and she smiled as she said, "So what did I miss, Chin Boy?"

"Oh, nothing much. You only killed Krail and stopped the Cybermen all by yourself. I'm actually just a little bit jealous. I'm usually the one who saves the day. I really hope that you're not going to make a habit of this, Clara, or you're going to ruin all of my fun," the Doctor said as he faked a pouting face.

"Don't worry, Chinny. I'm not greedy. I'll still let you save the day too ever once in a while," Clara said with a warm smile as she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Are you feeling alright? You were almost dead a minute ago," the Doctor finally said with concern.

"I feel fine. I didn't even know that I could do that. I guess I'm finding out more and more about the changes to my body every day even after all of this time. It's nice to know that something can still surprise me after nine hundred years," Clara said grinning.

"I know. It is a nice feeling, isn't it?" the Doctor said as he hugged her to him tightly and kissed her forehead in gratitude that she was alright.

"Doctor, one of these days I'm really going to get jealous of that kind of thing even if she is like family to you. Right now though I'm too busy fighting for my life to worry about it," Rose said as she suddenly came flying through the air and demolished a wall from the impact of her crashing into it.

"Rose!" the Doctor shouted in concern.

"Oh, so now you're worried about me, huh? You just left me all alone while you helped everyone else. I might just start taking that personally if I didn't know any better," Rose joked in a weak voice as she struggled to get up off of the floor.

"I'm sorry. I thought that you could beat him. You did before," the Doctor said as he began to scan her with his sonic.

He sighed in relief and then gave her a passionate kiss and held her close to him as he saw that she was basically okay. She had just had the wind knocked out of her.

Rose smiled as she said, "Maybe I should almost get killed more often if it'll provoke a reaction like that from you."

"Don't you dare," the Doctor said as he helped her up off the floor.

"Uh, Doctor, Rose, where is the Shadow?" Mikaela asked as she looked around everywhere for signs of his presence.

"The Shadow? Oh, right! I forgot. I'm afraid that I have absolutely no idea, Ella," the Doctor said absentmindedly as he continued to stare at Rose who grinned back at him.

"Isn't that kind of important?" Mikaela asked as she sighed in exasperation at this particular Doctor's behavior.

It was times like this that she really missed her Doctor. He may not have been the poster boy for kindness and warmth sometimes, but at least he would never forget about the guy that was trying to kill him while he was trying to kill him!

"Relax, Mikaela. I think that he must have already left if he hasn't come back by now. He must have decided to go while he still could because he was too afraid of Rose. I can't say as I blame him too," Charley said as she put a reassuring arm around her young friend.

"I guess so," Mikaela said in an unconvinced tone.

That was when the Shadow suddenly reappeared out of nowhere and began attacking all of them again. To everyone else's horror, the Doctor and Rose still seemed to be too busy staring at each other to even notice him.

"How dare you ignore me! You will pay for your impertinence!" the Shadow said in an outraged tone as the two Time Lords stood absolutely still even as he fired blasts of energy all around them as he walked closer and closer to them.

"Do me a favor, Shadow, and shut up!" Rose said as she suddenly fired an enormous blast of Vortex energy at him at full strength.

The Shadow screamed in pain as he immediately disintegrated right before everyone's eyes. As soon as he did, Victoria gasped in surprise as the power of the Great Intelligence immediately flowed back into her. The Shadow had apparently been keeping it from her even after Krail's death.

"How do you feel, Victoria? Are you alright?" Polly asked her.

"Yes, I feel fine now. I suddenly remember everything that I've been forgetting. I even remember the secrets of the Viyrans that I took out of their database back on their ship. I did that so that I could help people if I ever ran across any of their viruses, and they weren't there to do anything about them. It must have been the Shadow making me forget. He was doing all of that to me all along," Victoria said.

"Maybe he's been messing around with my head too. I forgot something recently too. It was something that I was going to warn Sarah Jane about. What are the odds that it was just a coincidence?" Rose asked out loud.

"Not likely I don't think," the Doctor said.

"So you two planned this? You acted stupid on purpose for once, Chinny?" Mikaela asked.

"Oi! I never act stupid. It was all a part of a very clever and diabolical trap as we made the Shadow think that we had forgotten him and were deliberately ignoring him in an attempt to take advantage of his massive ego. His pride made him careless, and he got just a little bit too close to us in order to yell at us because we weren't paying attention to him. That was when Rose let him have it. I think that kind of extra clever sneakiness is a lot better than wasting your time being tossed through walls, don't you, Rose?" the Doctor said grinning.

"You can really tell that he came up with this plan while we talked things over telepathically, can't you?" Rose said as she shook her head at him with a small smile on her face.

"I never would have guessed. It's completely unlike the Doctor to pat himself on the back so much you know," Clara said sarcastically.

"Oh, I know. I know," Rose said.

Then they stopped bantering as they saw Victoria gently touching a silent Jamie's unresponsive face with tears in her eyes as she said, "Are Jamie, Zoe, and the others stuck like this forever?"

"No, they're going to be alright. We'll just have to take them to Krail's cyber-conversion center and undo all of this. That is as soon as we can find it," the Doctor said.

"Are you sure, Doctor? We could never undo cyber-conversion in the old days," Polly said.

"That's because Marissa wasn't on my side back then. She's a genius when it comes to this sort of thing. She may be even better than me at it," the Doctor said.

"May be? She graduated near the top of our class while you barely scraped by because you were always too bored in class to ever bother to learn anything," Rose said as she chastised him with a loving smile on her face.

"I wasn't bored. I was distracted," the Doctor said.

Rose looked at him skeptically as she said, "Really? By what? Those sweets that you used to carry around in your pockets?"

"By you," the Doctor admitted with an embarrassed look on his face.

Rose looked surprised at first and then her eyes lit up with love for him as she pulled him toward her and gave him a passionate kiss. She really hadn't known anything about that until this moment.

True to the Doctor's word, Marissa was soon able to restore everyone that Krail had converted back to normal with no side effects. As soon as Jamie was back to normal, both he and Victoria began openly showing their affection for one another as they confessed the truth about how they felt to each other at last. Zoe was happy for Jamie even if her own heart ached for the moment. She knew that someday she would move on, but until then she would never let Jamie know how she really felt about him. She would never ruin his happiness that way.

Clara was of course admonished by both the Doctor and Rose never to use her Vortex abilities like that again even if she could heal herself because the next time she might be too weak from using them for even that to work. Clara promised never to do it again, but no one quite believed her. They knew her much too well. The Doctor made himself a mental note to stop her from doing that again in the future no matter what.

Krail's body mysteriously disappeared right after the battle somehow. According to Koschei, the surviving remnants of the C.I.A. who hadn't been discovered by the High Council just yet had taken it in order to do further studies on him just in case there were any other original Cybermen still out there somewhere that might strike Gallifrey again in the future. That knowledge didn't exactly make anyone feel better about how things had ended.

Rose meanwhile wondered when the Shadow would return and who he had been working with that had increased his powers to such a massive new level. She sent Victoria, Jamie, and Zoe back to stay with Eris in order to protect her from his inevitable future comeback. She knew that he wasn't dead for good because a servant of the Guardians was practically indestructible. He would be back. It was only a matter of time and that unnerved her because he seemed to be able to even manipulate her mind now somehow. That scared her more than any enemy that she had ever faced before because she knew that if anyone ever turned her against her family and friends the odds were that she would annihilate all of them before anyone could stop her.

That made her even happier that she had a secret back-up plan in place to stop her in case something like that ever happened.

She would soon come to regret that decision. Very soon.

Next: The Symmetry kidnaps one of the Doctor and Rose's friends and brainwashes them into killing their greatest enemy. The problem with that is that that friend just happens to know a way to defeat and possibly even kill Rose! You don't even want to know who the target is, but I bet you can guess.

Next time it's Part 1 of a special crossover between this title and another one that will be named at the end of the next chapter which will feature the beginning of the battle of the century. This one may not end the way that you're expecting it to, folks.