Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who
A/N: I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas yesterday XD
The Witch's Familiars – Part One
Clara awoke slowly…she tried to move, only to find that her hands and feet were bound with rope. Emily, Flavia and the Corsair were all tied up in the same way, struggling to loosen their bonds. Missy was the only one of them unbound; she sat on a nearby rock, sharpening a stick and resting her foot on the Corsair's blaster. The Time Lady glanced up, spotted Clara and gave a smile that reminded her of a crocodile. "Oh, good, you're all awake! Now, let me tell you a story"-
"Clara!" she was interrupted by Emily, who leaned out past Flavia to look at her honorary aunt and ask, "Are you alright?"
"I think so…where are we? Why aren't we?"-
"Hush!" Missy barked suddenly, startling them. "Unless you want to stay tied up, I suggest you shut your mouth and listen" she warned Emily, who glared fiercely at her. She wasn't the only one.
"Don't talk to my goddaughter that way" the Corsair scowled angrily, struggling to loosen his bonds. Missy gave a little moue of disappointment and lamented, "Well that's a fine way to treat the one who saved your lives…"
"You saved our lives?" Clara couldn't help but blurt in surprise, "How?!"
Missy rolled her eyes in exasperation, and pointed the stick at Clara, saying "I was getting to that, if you'd all just let me finish, thank you".
They all glowered at her…except for Flavia, who reluctantly admitted, "If she did save us, then it's really the least we can do to hear her out…"
"Thank you, Flavia…Now where was I?" she asked rhetorically, tapping the tip of her makeshift spear and wincing, "Ow".
"Err, why are you sharpening that stick?" asked Clara, guessing it couldn't be for anything good.
Missy shrugged and explained "Well, I've no idea how long we're going to be stuck out here. Might have to go hunting, and I'm sure the Corsair would prefer if I didn't waste his shots".
"…So, why are we tied up?"
"In case there's nothing to hunt" Missy grinned darkly at them.
The Corsair rolled his eyes and said impatiently, "You were saying?"
"Don't rush me. Now, consider the Doctor. Alone, trapped, no friends, no TARDIS … in his element, basically. Doesn't matter which face he was wearing, they're all the Doctor to me. So let's give it to the eyebrows".
"Um, won't the Daleks" – Clara began.
"Hush, mummy's talking" Missy jabbed the sharp stick warningly at her, before continuing, "He's travelling by teleporter. Unfortunately, his teleporter is out of power. Also unfortunate, he's being stalked by, oh, say about fifty android assassins? I may be rounding up. Fifty invisible, indestructible android assassins, all exclusively programmed to kill him. Surrounded, outnumbered. Outgunned…and freeze. Nanoseconds to live. Four, I'd say, being generous. Now, pop quiz. How did he survive?"
"Easy, it never happened and you're making it up" the Corsair answered immediately.
"But if I weren't, how did he survive?"
"He stole the teleport you mentioned from an android, didn't he?" Emily surmised, playing along.
"Ooh, clever girl! Which means?"
"Which means the teleporter probably used the same energy as the androids weapons, right?" Clara guessed.
"Excellent? Not seeing you as sandwiches so much anymore".
"Okay, then" Clara grimaced a bit, "He uses the energy wave from the android weapons to recharge the teleport bracelet and at the exact moment he's supposed to disintegrate, he teleports…hang on, but that doesn't explain how you got us out. We weren't all wearing teleports".
"No, but it does explain how she survived last time" Flavia sighed, "I did think it was suspicious that the disintegration beam of that Cyberman looked identical to your teleport".
"We all did" the Corsair nodded, before asking Missy, "Mind telling us how you did get us out? Preferably getting straight to the point, this time" he added.
Missy frowned at him, but before she could make a retort, Emily spoke up and explained "She took blood samples from all of us to key our genetic structures into her controller, which was already keyed into the Vortex Manipulator she's wearing, and after she'd teleported out, she recreated all of us, every atom, from her controller's hard drive. So, we actually did get exterminated, but she created back-up files of us so to speak, which is why none of us have regenerated or officially died".
Emily's brusque yet detailed explanation was met with surprised stares…then Missy applauded her. "Oh, well done! Not seeing you as sandwiches, either. Hang on a tick" she said, pulling out her controller and aiming it at them all. They all cried out in protest, but when Missy pressed a button, all that disintegrated were the ropes around their wrists and ankles.
Flavia got to her feet and approached Missy, who stood up to face her. "You know when they say a man should never hit a lady?" Flavia inquired lightly.
"…Yes?"
Flavia slapped Missy, hard. "That was for Romana" she said coolly, before slapping Missy again, "And that one was for me". With that, she went to check on Emily, and comfort the girl who was surely worried for her parents.
Clara sidled over to the Corsair and muttered, "Yikes".
"Yeah...I've never seen her like that before" he murmured back… Kind of hot though he thought briefly, before striding up to Missy and demanding, "Blaster, give me, now".
She held the weapon behind her back and insisted "Say something nice".
He resisted (barely) rolling his eyes. "I'm not going to shoot you" he told her, inwardly thinking Just yet. "You won't be able to use it anyway, it's isomorphic".
Missy raised an eyebrow, and fired a shot out into the desert…or tried to, anyway. The Corsair snatched it out of her hand and holstered it. The five of them stood looking down at the Dalek city, and Missy asked, "Why does the Doctor always survive?"
"Cos he's clever?" the Corsair suggested with a shrug.
"Yes, but there's lots of clever dead people. I love killing clever clogs, they make the best faces".
"Because he always assumes he's going to win. He always knows there's a way to survive. He just has to go and find it" said Clara.
Emily added "And my mum's with him…they can do anything together" she said firmly.
"Well, we've all got our work cut out for us" Missy remarked, "Your parents are trapped at the heart of the Dalek empire. They are prisoners of the creatures who hate your father most in the universe. Between us and them is everything the deadliest race in all of history can throw at us. We, on the other hand, have a pointy stick and a blaster. How do we start?"
"We assume we're going to win" Clara answered confidently.
Missy seemed rather disappointed. "Oh…pity, really. I was actually quite peckish" she sighed, heading off through the desert. The others followed, partly out of wanting to keep an eye on the mad Time Lady, and partly because they had nowhere else to go.
"Can the rest of us have sticks?" asked Clara.
"Make your own pointy stick".
/
Romana was numb…the initial shock of seeing her beloved daughter exterminated had worn off, leaving a hollow inside her that she doubted would ever be healed. She stood in front of the screen, staring at the spot where Emily had been standing, grieving silently and ignoring Davros. The callous, mad scientist showed no concern for the distraught parent's plight; he barely acknowledged Romana's presence. "It took me so very long to realise it was you" he told the Doctor, "standing at the gates of my beginning. And here you are at the end".
The Doctor ignored him as well, searching the room, all the junk and spare parts for…aha!
"But this time, I have you at my mercy. Exterminate" Davros mocked, as the Doctor held a Dalek gunstick to the back of his head. "Ancient, inoperable".
True enough, the gun failed to fire, and the Doctor almost threw it away in frustration. At the last second he hesitated, looked over at his wife and cautiously asked, "Romana, can I borrow your sonic to fix this thing?"
"You would threaten a dying man?" asked Davros, "Have I not suffered enough?"
Suddenly, Romana was in front of him, glaring into his bionic eye with loathing. "Your pets murdered my daughter. No amount of suffering would be enough" she hissed with vitriol. The Doctor stood beside her in solidarity. "Get out" he ordered suddenly.
"I cannot leave this chamber" Davros protested, "It sustains me".
"Get out!"
/
Alarms began ringing in the Supreme Dalek's control room; one Dalek exclaimed "Alert! Alert! The infirmary is breached!"
"Protect Davros" the Supreme Dalek ordered immediately, "Davros must be assisted".
The wall screen showed a schematic of the building, and a red dot moving down the corridor towards them. "Davros is leaving the infirmary" one Dalek cried.
"Davros must remain. Davros cannot leave" the Supreme Dalek insisted.
"My children!" Davros rasped over the intercom, "Help me!"
"You must return to the infirmary".
"The Doctor and his wife are escaping. Find them. Find the Doctor and Romana!"
"Find the Doctor and Romana!" the Supreme Dalek commanded, "Seek, locate, destroy!"
/
"Seek, locate, destroy!"
"Seek, locate!"
"Exterminate the Doctor and Romana!"
"Exterminate! Exterminate!"
All of this and more could be heard by the remainder of the Time Quintet, Clara and Missy. "What's happening?" asked Clara, as they hunkered down behind some boulders.
"They're trying to escape and really piss the Daleks off at the same time, obviously" the Corsair replied, "Not that doing the latter is difficult".
Clara looked alarmed. "They're in the middle of all that" she said worriedly.
"All the better for us, it'll make a nice distraction" he pointed out, as they moved on.
/
"Assist me!" Davros cried pitifully; the Daleks erroneously thought he was nearing the control room.
"Davros approaches" one Dalek reported, as the red dot that tracked their creators travel unit moved towards the door.
"Admit Davros. Admit the creator" the Supreme Dalek instructed.
"Help me!"
"Assist Davros, assist!"
A Dalek who had followed a different route into the infirmary to investigate found Davros, or what was left of him, lying on the floor… and back in the control room, the door opened to reveal the Doctor, sitting in Davros travel unit, with Romana holding onto the back. "Admit it" he taunted, "You've all had this exact nightmare…so, anyone for dodgems?"
"Exterminate!" the Dalek Supreme cried out, and all the Daleks fired simultaneously…
/
The remainder of the Time Quintet, Clara and Missy were gathered around a large hole in the ground. They wrinkled their noses a bit at the unpleasant odour emanating from within. "Daleks have sewers?" Clara asked in surprise. What would they need sewers for?
"It's not really a sewer" the Corsair replied with a grimace.
"What is it, then?"
"Alive" Missy answered ominously, before inquiring more lightly, "How much of a drop would you say that is? Can you see the bottom?"
Clara leaned over the edge of the pit. "Too dark" she shook her head, "Err, we could chuck a stone down, or something" she suggested.
"Oh yeah, good idea".
Suddenly Clara felt herself being yanked backwards. The Corsair let go of the back of her shirt and advised, "Don't lean out over dark pits next to mad people, Clara".
She blinked in bewilderment, looking between him and Missy. "Hang on, were…were you going to push me in?!" she demanded, indignant and alarmed.
Missy rolled her eyes at the theatrics and answered, "Oh don't whine so much, I'm sure you would have survived. Now how are we supposed to find out how deep this is?"
They heard the tell-tale thunk of a rock hitting rock. "It's twenty feet" Emily informed them, having moved to the other side of the hole and dropped a large stone down it.
"Why do we need to know how deep it is, anyway?" asked Flavia. The rest of them just looked at her, and she groaned "Oh, no…"
/
The Doctor sipped from a white tea cup with gold trim, perfectly calm despite being surrounded by insane, homicidal pepper-pots. Romana was more feigning calmness, but she was very glad that Davros' personal force-field had encompassed her as well. "Of course, the real question is, where did I get the cup of tea?" her husband asked rhetorically, "Answer? I'm the Doctor. Just accept it".
"You are unharmed" the Supreme Dalek noted. Is it just me, or are they always stating the obvious? The Doctor asked Romana; without waiting for an answer he stated, "Proposition. Davros is an insane, paranoid genius who has survived among several billion trigger-happy mini-tanks for centuries. Conclusion? I'm definitely having his chair".
"You and your mate cannot escape, Doctor".
The Doctor held up the Dalek gun, now fully operational thanks to Romana's sonic screwdriver. He didn't have his own with him; when they'd tried to escape before, he'd resorted to beating on the door with his fists. As if mere physical strength could break down an impenetrable barrier – but he'd been desperate. He still was. "I'm guessing his personal force-field only works in one direction".
"The Doctor does not use weapons".
"Doesn't he? Ah, listen to your little heart's beat!"
/
The Corsair caught Clara as she jumped down from the edge of the pit, followed by Emily. They were in a tunnel carved through the rock, the walls coated in a tar like greenish black gunge. Flavia grimaced in disgust. "It doesn't matter what planet they're on" she muttered darkly, "I hate sewers".
"The Corsair said it wasn't a sewer, though" Clara recalled, "So what is it?"
"I don't think you want to know" he replied, taking out his blaster and aiming it at Missy, who had her back to him…she smirked when she turned and saw the weapon aimed at her. "Oh, please. If you were going to kill me, you would have fired by now" she pointed out, "Face it Corsair, you've gone soft".
He tensed, finger tightening on the trigger. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shoot you" he challenged, glaring at her.
Missy regarded him with a thoughtful expression, and replied, "Certainly". With whip fast reflexes, she reached out and dragged Flavia in front of her, pressing the length of her pointy stick against the other Time Lady's throat. Flavia struggled to push the wood away and choked out, "Get off!"
"No can do, poppet" Missy answered, grinning triumphantly at the Corsair over Flavia's shoulder. "Is this a good enough reason for you?"
The Corsair's eyes hardened; he switched to aiming at Missy's face instead of her chest. "Let her go, now, or you'll regret it!"
"Say something nice!" Missy sing-songed, "Or I'll choke your girlfriend".
"She's not my girlfriend!"
"Corsair, just put the blaster down!" Clara said desperately. The Corsair slowly lowered the weapon, but Missy didn't let up trapping Flavia…until Flavia herself stamped hard on Missy's foot. With a cry of pain the mad Time Lady released the pressure; Flavia forced the stick away from her and ducked underneath it.
The Corsair reached out and pulled her to safety. "Are you alright?" he asked in concern, seeing a red mark on her throat where the rough wood had pressed into it. Flavia nodded, breathless.
"Stepping on my toes" Missy commented, "Really, I don't know why you didn't think of that before".
They all glared at her. "You almost killed my godmother" Emily frowned.
"Your godfather almost killed me" Missy riposted, before adding to the Corsair, "Which I didn't really appreciate, by the way. Team work is all about respect".
"We are not a team".
"Of course we are" she said confidently, "I'm an asset, whether you like it or not…and if you haven't noticed, I'm rather hard to kill. Now, let's get on with things, shall we? This place is a mess".
"Can one of you please explain what this place is, if it isn't a sewer?" Clara demanded.
"Well, it is a sewer of sorts, dear" Missy nodded, "Although Daleks don't generate much in the way of waste".
"So what's all this gunge, then?"
"Decaying Daleks" Missy answered, and Clara grimaced, stepping away from the wall. "Daleks can't die. Genetically hard-wired to keep on living, whatever happens. Well" Missy gestured around her, "But they still age, poor loves. Over time, the body breaks down, rots, liquefies. Interestingly, the Dalek word for sewer is the same as their word for graveyard" she commented, stabbing the wall with her pointed stick. The organic matter coating the wall screamed.
/
"Ask us what we want" the Doctor challenged the Supreme Dalek. Romana didn't know where he was going with this; he hadn't told her what the plan was, just that he had one. Perhaps she should have asked, but she trusted him to the ends of the universe.
"Irrelevant" the Supreme Dalek intoned, "You will not prevail. You will not succeed".
"We've been at the heart of your empire for forty two minutes, and we own it, and I haven't even got out of my chair. Ask us what we want".
There was a pause, and then the Supreme Dalek inquired, "What do you want?"
The Doctor's gaze and voice hardened even more, if that were possible. "Our daughter" he answered bluntly. Romana stared at him in bewilderment; Emily was dead, and it broke their hearts, but had it driven her husband off the edge?
He pressed a switch on Davros' control panel and broadcasted across the city; down in the sewer-catacombs, their family (and Missy) stopped and listened. "I want Emily, Clara, the Corsair and Flavia returned to us, safe and alive, immediately. You bring them back. You do that. You do that now. Unharmed, unhurt, alive" he ordered, continuing to threaten the Supreme Dalek with the unattached blaster.
"Your associates"-
"I saw what happened!" the Doctor shouted suddenly, "I was there. And I'm hoping, for all of our sakes, that it was a trick".
"It was not a deception".
"Because if my daughter really is dead, then you'd better be very, very careful how you tell me" he warned. Deep down, he knew that Emily was gone, but he refused to accept it…because, deeper still, he had the feeling that she had somehow survived… "Who's going to tell me?" he challenged, "Who's going to go first? All the power Davros had is mine. Everything he had, I have. Who's going to tell me, that my family and my best friend are really dead?"
"They are not alive" the Supreme Dalek replied at last.
"Doctor, this urge for conquest" Davros remarked, appearing on a screen, "It is gratifying to see you learn".
"Davros, you're up. Sorry, this seat's taken".
"Indeed – but not by you" Davros replied. Snakes slithered out from inside the chair, swarming over the Doctor and Romana and entrapping them. "You've met my Head of Personal Security, I think. Colony Sarff; his agents are everywhere".
"Doctor!" Romana cried out as her husband was engulfed in the legless fiends; then she screamed as one snake electrified the chair, rendering her unconscious.
In his room, supported by cables, Davros asked his Head of Security, "Are you ready?"
"Of course" Sarff replied with a hiss.
"Be subtle, Colony Sarff. Tonight, we entrap a Time Lord" Davros murmured, as Sarff uncoiled.