CHAPTER 32
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A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY UP THE AISLE PART 2
Clara and the Rani instantly reappeared on the Rani's TARDIS somewhere in the middle of the Vortex just a moment after they had left the Earth behind. As soon as they arrived in the TARDIS' Console Room, Clara could see that the Master was standing nearby encased inside of a force field with a furious look on his face.
"You leave her out of this, Ushas! She has nothing to do with any of it!" The Master shouted in anger.
The Rani rolled her eyes at him as she said, "You never really change at all do you, Koschei? Still the gallant white knight as far as your precious Alura is concerned, aren't you?"
"Do I detect a note of jealousy in there somewhere, Ushas? Why don't you just admit it to yourself? This doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with a secret Dalek weapon. It's all about getting me back isn't it?" The Master said with a smug smile.
The Rani sighed as she said, "And I thought the Doctor was the universe's all-time champion narcissist. It seems I was wrong though. You've definitely hit a new low here today even for you, Koschei."
"Just admit it, Ushas. You're madly in love with me," The Master insisted.
"You know one of these days you're going to come across a female version of yourself and then you'll finally find the perfect person for you to be with at long last, Koschei. Remind me not to be there when it happens. Such a level of pomposity being gathered together in one place is sure to blow a hole in the universe," The Rani said with disdain.
"That just shows what you know. I've already met a female version of myself and we didn't get along at all. She actually wanted to kill me," The Master protested.
"Well, at least there's one of you out there with some common sense," The Rani shot back.
Despite the seriousness of the situation Clara couldn't help but laugh at their bickering. The two of them had always been like this even back when they were children. Some things truly never did change it seemed.
"Well, I'm glad to see that I'm providing you with a new source of entertainment, Alura. What? Was the Doctor becoming too bland and predictable for you?" The Rani said with a frown.
"Yeah, trust me. That's definitely never going to happen. In fact, just before you came I was seriously considering slapping all of him unconscious just so that I could finally get some peace," Clara admitted with a grin.
The Rani actually smiled at that for a brief moment as she said, "I definitely would have loved to be there for that. I'm sure the looks of sheer terror on their faces would have been priceless."
Both of them started to laugh now and for a brief moment Clara almost felt as if she had suddenly gone back in time and not in the usual way. Once again she was just a young girl back in her first days at the Academy on Gallifrey, and it was Alura and Ushas united together against the rest of the Deca, the cream of the crop of the Academy's most brilliant students, as they showed them all who was boss.
Back then Ushas had been a completely different person. In fact, she had been much more like Alura and had an often mischievous, playful nature which frequently showed itself in the form of several extremely hilarious pranks that she played on the other students with an all too willing Alura's help. The two of them had been virtually inseparable back then, and there was no one that the young Alura cared about more other than Theta and Koschei.
They were going to be best friends forever once.
"Those days are long gone now, Alura," The Rani said in a cold, emotionless voice as the smile immediately left her face.
Then she silently ordered her to go stand next to the Master while still pointing her gun at her. It was obvious now that she was just about to expand the force field surrounding him to include her too next.
As a bitter reality violently invaded her dreams of yesterday, Clara's smile faded too now and she instantly became serious as she said in a gentle tone, "Ushas, why are you doing this? What is this really about, eh?"
"You still think that you can appeal to the woman that you once knew don't you? That person is dead though, Alura. She died the same day that my father did," The Rani said as she silently gestured for her to move once more.
Clara stubbornly stood her ground though as she said, "I don't believe that. I can't believe it. Just like I can't believe that you'd ever be able to bring yourself to hurt me. We went through too much together for me to ever accept that you could have changed that much despite how things ended between us. That's why I'm not moving one inch from this spot until you tell me exactly what I want to know."
"Alura, don't!" The Master warned in an extremely worried voice.
"I'm giving you one last warning, Alura. Either you walk over there or I'll move you myself," Ushas said in a hard tone.
"I'd like to see you try, Stone Face," Clara said defiantly.
"As you wish," The Rani said as she suddenly used her other hand to pull a staser out of one of her pockets and immediately fired on Clara with it.
Clara instantly deflected the blast away from her with a telekinetic shove, and it bounced harmlessly off of the TARDIS wall as she looked at the Rani in absolute shock. She had actually done it!
"You tried to shoot me," Clara said in a hurt voice.
"Oh, I'm going to do far more than try," The Rani said as she fired at her once again.
Clara instantly deflected the blast once more and the Rani's mouth began to form a grim smile as she said, "Interesting. So I didn't just simply miss the first time around did I? Your telekinetic ability must be off the scale to be able to do something like that twice. Let's test just how skilled that you really are though, hmm? I trust you remember how good I was at marksmanship don't you?"
The Rani immediately began firing several shots at Clara at rapid speed that quickly strained even her formidable skills to their limits. It was taking every ounce of concentration that she possessed just to keep up with the sheer volume of incoming attacks now.
"Very good. I never knew you had it in you, Alura. Now it's time to find out exactly what your limits are," The Rani said with an evil laugh as she somehow began firing even faster on her now.
That was when Clara realized that the Rani had been holding back. She had just been testing her up until now.
"Ushas, why are you doing this? I love you," Clara said in a horrified voice as her brain exploded in pain from the effort of fighting back against her.
"Love? Of what use is love, Alura? Did it save my father? I loved him too and he still died anyway despite that didn't he?" The Rani said in a furious voice as she continued to escalate her assault.
"Oh, I cannot believe you! That's what this is all about isn't it? That wasn't your fault, Ushas. Why do you keep blaming yourself for it? Your anger at the entire universe over it is what broke up our friendship," Clara said in anger as her head began hurting so badly that she had to struggle to keep from blacking out.
Her hearts still burned with loss as she remembered the way that the Rani had become a heartless, emotionless creature of pure, cold logic after her father had died. From that moment on, she had completely cut herself off from everyone and everything that had been a part of her old life as she devoted herself whole-heartedly to her studies and nothing else.
Even her closest friend.
"Friendship is even less useful than love is, Alura, especially if it stands in the way of what you really want. Believe me when I say that nothing and no one is going to stop me now when I'm so close to finally undoing my greatest mistake at last. Not even you," The Rani said in a cold, dispassionate voice as she seemingly redoubled her efforts to hit her.
"Stop this! Don't you see what you're doing to her! Leave her alone!" The Master screamed as he impotently beat his fists against the force field surrounding him for the hundredth time since the Rani had kidnapped him out of his TARDIS.
It had no more effect on the force field now than it had on any of his previous attempts to break free of it unfortunately. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself if he hadn't at least tried though.
Finally it all proved to be far too much for Clara at last as she let out an agonizing scream and instantly fell forward in a lifeless heap at the Rani's feet.
"Alura!" The Master screamed in terror.
The Rani immediately pulled a bioscanner out of one of her pockets after putting the staser and her miniature copy of the Dalek doomsday weapon away. Then she quickly scanned Clara with it as she checked her former friend's pulse.
"Is she still alive? Tell me," The Master demanded.
To his surprise, The Master could have sworn he saw a brief look of regret flash through the Rani's eyes for a moment before she said to him, "She'll live. She passed out from the exertion to her system of trying to keep up with me. She never had a chance really. I trained myself to use all of my strength and speed as a Time Lord to their limits in order to make me one of the fastest and deadliest sharpshooters in the known universe. I knew that it would come in handy someday against anyone who might try to attack me once I went off on my own. I was always going to capture her in this force field eventually either one way or another. I can't afford to have her escaping on me at this point in my plans, Koschei. I need her as leverage against the Doctors in order to keep them in check."
As the Rani dragged the now unconscious Clara next to the trapped Master, he said to her, "You could have ended up killing her that way. What if she had had a cerebral hemorrhage as a result? Don't you have any feelings left for her whatsoever? This isn't some enemy out to kill you. This is Alura. Her only crime was to still believe in you when no one else would."
The Rani looked at him with surprise as she said, "Romana really has mellowed you hasn't she? Next you'll be telling me that you're best friends with the Doctor again."
"Even she could never make me go that far. I tolerate his continued existence for her sake but that's all," The Master said with a clear look of disgust.
"Liar. I can see it in your eyes. You're already well on your way to reconciling with him again. You don't speak of him with anywhere near the same level of hatred that you used to once. I never thought I'd see the day when there was a chance that you two would become friends again. I suppose it just proves that anything's possible," The Rani said with a smirk as she extended the force field around the Master to include Clara too now.
"Let Alura go and I'll give you whatever you want, Ushas. She's suffered enough," The Master said with a look of concern as he checked Clara's pulse for himself.
"You would do that for her freedom?" The Rani asked as a small smile of triumph started to slowly spread over her face.
The Master glared at her as he said, "You know I would. That's why you brought her here for in the first place because she was the one person who would both keep the Doctor away and make me give into you without any further resistance."
"Exactly. Always use your enemy's weakness against them whenever possible. You taught me that, Koschei," The Rani said.
"Never mind the useless recriminations, Ushas. Just let her go," The Master said.
"I will . . . just as soon as you tell me exactly how to make the full version of the Dalek weapon. I need to build a model of it that can even affect the Web of Time itself. Despite what our instructors at the Academy once taught us, I believe that a fixed point in time really can be changed, Koschei. You just have to know how and with your help I finally know the exact way to do it at last," The Rani said with glee.
"I told you before that what happened wasn't your fault, Ushas. It was an accident. It could have happened at any time whether you pulled that stupid prank on him or not. You couldn't have possibly known that your father had weak hearts that would stop if he was given a sudden surprise shock. None of us did. Not even his own doctor knew it. You've allowed your obsession with undoing that single moment in time to completely destroy your life and it has to stop," The Master said.
"You're a fine one to talk to me about obsession with something, Koschei. Will you tell me what I want or must we continue with this useless tactic of stalling for time until the Doctor comes? I'll hold out just as long as you will and there will be no Doctor coming to save the day this time not with Alura in danger like she is. I can promise you that," The Rani said.
The Master sighed now as he finally said, "Fine. I'll tell you everything. You'll have to do a temporary mental link in order to get it all though. There are detailed schematics that I committed to memory but could never draw well enough for you to understand them. That means you'll have to let me out of this force field. In order to do this properly, we'll have to have physical contact. "
The Rani looked at him warily as she said, "Right. So you can overpower me as soon as I let you go. I don't think so. First you're going to put these handcuffs on and then I'll let you out."
"Let's just get this over with," The Master said with a sigh as she laid a pair of handcuffs in front of him and then extended the force field to include them.
He quickly put the handcuffs on and as soon as he did a timer came up and began to start slowly counting down towards zero.
"So your handcuffs are rigged to explode? Is that it? That's a new one," The Master said with seemingly no concern.
"No, not explode but force you to regenerate through your entire life cycle in a matter of seconds if I don't disarm it in time. Think of it as an added incentive to tell me the truth since I could never count on you to be completely honest with me otherwise. Don't worry. As long as you cooperate, you'll be completely fine," The Rani said with a wicked smile as she finally let the Master out of the force field.
After the Master made his way over to her with a defeated look on his face, the Rani immediately put her hands on the sides of his temples and began to mentally link with him.
"You know being this close to you is making me extremely uncomfortable. Can we just get this over with quickly?" The Master complained.
"It's not exactly doing wonders for me either, Koschei," The Rani said with a frown.
"And why is that exactly? Is it because you're as attracted to me as I am to you right now?" The Master said with a sudden smile.
"What?" The Rani said in surprise.
"Oh, come now. I can see it in your eyes. You still want me even after all of this time," The Master said in a seductive voice.
"Stop it," The Rani said in an uncomfortable voice.
"Why? Is it because I'm hitting too close to home?" The Master asked with a wicked smile as he began to slowly move his face closer to hers.
"You're so full of yourself that it's beyond belief!" The Rani said in disgust as she hurried to finish the link between them before the Master could get any closer to her.
"Am I? Let's just see. Shall we?" The Master said as he suddenly kissed her.
The Rani's eyes bugged out in surprise and shock and she immediately started to pull away from him. Just before she could however, she received a powerful blow on the back of the head that instantly knocked her out cold.
"Well, it certainly took you long enough," The Master said with a groan.
"Are you sure that you're not just angry that I interrupted your special little moment?" The Twelfth Doctor said with a smirk.
"Just shut up and get me out of these things," The Master said in frustration as his face turned bright red in embarrassment.
"I will as soon as I get Clara out of that force field. You just stay there with your new girlfriend until I'm done," The Twelfth Doctor said.
"She's not my girlfriend! I was right in the middle of a plan to stop her before you came bumbling in here," The Master said in a furious voice.
"And what plan was that exactly? Snog her unconscious?" The Twelfth Doctor said as he quickly tied the Rani up.
"Just . . . stop it! I was about to knock her out myself with my handcuffs," The Master said in irritation.
"Of course you were. I wonder if Romana will believe that story," The Twelfth Doctor mused as he finally started to get to work on shutting down the force field.
"If you say a word to her about this, I'll make all of our previous fights look like a picnic in comparison," The Master threatened.
"Doctor, stop tormenting Koschei. I'm sure he feels bad enough as it is," Clara said from where she lay on the floor.
"Clara, are you alright?" The Twelfth Doctor asked with immediate concern as he finally turned the force field off at last.
"Other than the fact that I feel like my skull is about to give birth you mean? Yeah, I'm just peachy. How did you even get in here anyway? You were trapped in your TARDIS last I heard," Clara asked with a wince as she slowly got up off of the floor with the Doctor's help.
"That's where the other mes actually came in handy for once, Clara. We put our heads together and came up with a quick way to free at least one of us with a TARDIS from the temporal disturbance so that we could find the Rani. They all agreed that it should be me since if I died the others wouldn't be instantly erased and would still be around to give saving you another shot. It was a very ingenious plan by the way. Basically we poured our combined willpower into each of our TARDIS' telepathic circuits at once and that gave the Old Girl just enough of a power boost to free one of her selves. Then I brought her straight here and landed my TARDIS inside of the Rani's. I was being even more brilliant than usual with that idea. Now I just have to shut down whatever the Rani's using to create the disturbance and free the other mes," The Twelfth Doctor said proudly as he instantly went back to the console.
"Wait a minute! What about me?" The Master asked in disbelief as he shook his handcuffs angrily at him.
"Oh, you'll be fine. You still have a whole half an hour left on the countdown. I should definitely be finished by then. I think. Just talk to your girlfriend in the meantime if you get bored," The Twelfth Doctor said dismissively.
"She's not my girlfriend!" The Master shouted.
"That's good. I almost believed that one. You just keep practicing that for when it comes time to tell Romana," The Twelfth Doctor said.
"I promise you that I will kill you once I get freed, Doctor! Not even Alura will stop me this time!" The Master screamed.
"Oi! Not so loud. My head feels like it's about to split in two as it is, Blondie," Clara said in an annoyed voice.
"But he has to die," The Master protested.
"Fine. You can kill him later . . . after the wedding and the honeymoon of course," Clara said with a huge grin.
She immediately winced in pain as soon as she smiled.
"Are you alright?" Both The Doctor and The Master said at once.
"I'm fine. I just have to learn not to smile so much until my head stops hurting. Apparently smiling makes it even worse," Clara said with a frown.
"See? I told you that too much smiling was a bad thing," The Twelfth Doctor said in a triumphant tone.
Suddenly he screamed in pain as the entire console lit up with electricity and instantly shocked him into unconsciousness. As soon as the Doctor hit the floor, the Rani began laughing.
"Idiot! Did he really think that I wouldn't have some kind of safeguard planted in my console to prevent tampering?" The Rani said as she almost instantly freed herself from the ropes binding her.
"Don't tell me. You learned how to be a master escape artist too?" The Master said with a groan.
"Of course. You never know when a certain skill set might come in handy. I had to be prepared for every eventuality that I might come up against on my own when I first became a renegade," The Rani said with a smug smile.
"Apparently not every eventuality," Clara said with a chuckle.
"Shut up!" Both the Rani and the Master shouted at once as they both turned bright red.
"Oi! I told you no more yelling," Clara said as she clutched her head in pain.
"Luckily for you I have a quick cure for that, Alura," The Rani said as she reached for her staser.
She immediately gasped in surprise as she realized that it wasn't there and neither was the Dalek weapon she had constructed.
"Looking for these, Stone Face? The Doctor gave them to me for safekeeping. It's a good thing too, huh?" Clara said as she held up both weapons at once and pointed the staser straight at the Rani's head.
"You won't use that on me, Alura. I know you. You hate violence," The Rani said in a confident voice.
"You're not the only one who's changed since the old days, Ushas. It's over now," Clara said with a sad but determined look in her eyes.
"No, Alura, I'm afraid it isn't. Computer, execute Emergency Protocol 4417," The Rani ordered.
Suddenly the entire area became filled with gas as the Rani smiled from ear to ear. Clara and the Master both instantly slumped to the floor as soon as it reached them. Then the Rani quickly retrieved both of her weapons from Clara with a smug smile of satisfaction.
"Sleeping gas?" Clara said as she looked up at the Rani while struggling to stay awake.
"Your will is as strong as always I see. The Master is already out like a light and yet you still struggle on. Yes, it's specially made by me in my laboratory. Naturally I'm completely immune to it of course," The Rani said.
"W - Would have liked to have had you at my wedding, Ushas. Wish t – things could have worked out differently between us," Clara said in a rapidly weakening voice as her speech began to slur.
"So do I," The Rani admitted as she briefly stroked the top of Clara's head and surprised even herself by doing so.
"D - Don't do this, Ushas. It's a mistake to t - tamper with history this way. You know it is," Clara whispered.
"I have to. Don't you understand that? I have to save him," The Rani said.
"I d – do understand. B – Better than you think. I lost a parent too once. That's why I can't bring myself to hate you for what you've done. Not that I ever could anyway," Clara said with a brief smile before finally passing out.
"I'm sorry, Alura, but I have to do this. Once I save my father, then none of this will have ever happened anyway so we'll be friends again. Then it will all have been worth it. Every horrible thing I ever did in order to expand my knowledge enough to get myself to this point will along with every feeling that I ever denied myself so that I wouldn't be held back by them," The Rani said with genuine regret in her voice now as she started to move towards the Master.
As she slowly began to reach for the Master's temples in order to steal the knowledge of the Dalek weapon from his unconscious mind, she briefly looked back at Clara and said, "For what it's worth, I – I love you too. I love my father too though. That's why I have to do this."
"I'm sorry, my dear, but I'm afraid that we really can't allow you to go through with this," The voice of the First Doctor suddenly said from behind her.
"No matter how much we might sympathize with you personally," The Second Doctor added.
The Rani instantly whirled around to see all twelve of the other Doctors standing there along with Rose, Marion, the Metacrisis, Jenny, Ace, and Tish.
"That's why we all came together in order to stop you once Eyebrows over there let us know telepathically that Clara was safe. We had a hunch that one of us wouldn't be enough to stop you somehow. You were always far too clever to go down easily after all," The Eleventh Doctor said.
"That's right. That's why we had Marion here give us all a lift over here after we freed the rest of our selves from the Vortex. She was more than willing to help since you're currently only minutes away from ripping a huge hole in the Web of Time. It's never a good idea to tamper in any way with a fixed point. Trust me. I learned that the hard way," The Eighth Doctor said.
"Yeah, I have a little experience in that department too. It's definitely a bad idea no matter how noble your reasons might be, Ushas," Ten warned.
"I'm afraid it's far too late for even all of you combined to stop me now, Doctors. I've come too far and gotten too close to be stopped now at the last minute like this. Computer, release the dinosaurs!" The Rani shouted.
Instantly several hatches opened in the walls surrounding the Doctors, and a dozen or more dinosaur embryos tumbled out of them. The embryos instantly began growing at a rapid pace as per the Rani's design as they quickly transformed into full-grown adults.
"Do have fun with your new playmates, Doctors," The Rani taunted
Then she quickly encased herself, Clara, the Master, and the immediate area around the console in a protective force field. She would be completely safe to finish carrying out the last steps of her plan while the Doctors and their allies were completely torn apart by the small army of rapidly developing Raptors that were now quickly filling up the rest of the room.
"Now where were we?" The Rani said as she began to reach for the sides of the Master's head once more.
Next: Will the Rani finally gain the knowledge she seeks at last? Will the Web of Time become possibly irreparably damaged as a result of her actions? What will happen to the Doctors and the others? And don't forget about the Master and his handcuffs. More importantly, will Clara and the Doctor ever get married? Find out next time in the final conclusion to this storyline.