CHAPTER 66
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THE WRATH OF THE WEAVER
It had been a tense standoff for several minutes now as the Whisper Men continued to have their hands hovering over the hearts of the Bad Wolves even as Lilith held her knife over the Whisper Man voodoo doll that she had created. Neither side had even come close to blinking yet, and the Weaver was already beginning to become impatient.
She finally completely lost her temper and shouted at the Whisper Men, "Just finish them already! I need to have time to refine my mutagene before I can go to Gallifrey with it. I don't have time to mess around with this bunch of pathetic losers anymore. Move it, people. They should have already been toast a long time ago."
"Why don't you do it yourself, Spider Lady? Or are you too afraid of us 'pathetic losers' to fight us in person?" Donna taunted.
"She's still not used to her powers, Donna. I bet that's what it is. She doesn't know how to use them yet or why would she have to have time to fix her mutagene with them? If we could just knock off this lame bunch of Trickster rejects, I'm sure that we could take her easy," Ileana said.
"Really? So you think that I'm no threat to you, vampire? Is that it?" The Weaver said with an evil smile.
Suddenly she was standing next to Ileana as she teleported across the room in the blink of an eye. She touched Ileana's shoulder before she could even move to stop her and made her scream in agony as she used her newfound power against her.
"What are you doing to her?!" Donna shouted in anger as Ileana began changing right before everyone's eyes.
The Weaver smiled as she said, "Why I'm refining my mutagene of course, Donna. All I have to do is to think of its chemical composition now, and I can secrete it from my fingertips. You know I'm still very curious about what will happen if I use it on a vampire. So I think I'll find out. This should be fun."
"No! Don't!" Ileana screamed as she regressed into a large bat-like creature that looked more like some kind of prehistoric nightmare than a vampire.
"What's the matter, Ileana? You don't like looking like something that crawled out of a tar pit? Tough! You're stuck that way forever now or at least until I decide to change you back. Maybe if you're very nice to me from now on I'll consider it. Possibly. Now let's see who I can regress next, hmm? You know maybe this is just a blessing in disguise that you bunch of rejects from the Pantheon of Discord's casting calls couldn't kill this lot. I mean why not use them to refine the mutagene and kill two birds with one stone, right?" The Weaver taunted.
"I'll tell you why not," Tori said as she suddenly grabbed the Weaver by the arm in a vice-like grip and unleashed a massive blast of plasma into her face with her other hand before she could get away from her.
The Weaver screamed in agony as her body completely disintegrated in an instant.
Donna looked at Tori in surprise as she said, "I wish you had done that a lot sooner, Star Girl."
"So do I," Ileana said in a gutteral voice that was more like an animal's than a person's now.
"Lana, you can still think? How are you feeling?" Martha asked in concern.
"Of course I can think. She made me into a cave dweller but let me keep my intelligence. She obviously wanted me to know what was going on so that I would suffer. I guess that's what she meant by refining the mutagene, huh?" Ileana said in a scared voice.
"Don't worry, honey. We'll find a way to fix you. I promise," Martha reassured her.
"I certainly hope so because I'm so big that I can't even walk and worse than that I'm getting hungry," Ileana warned.
"For blood?" Martha said as she backed away from her warily.
"Yes and lots of it. Unfortunately it isn't just vampire blood that I want anymore. She's messed around with Rose's reprogramming of my basic instincts. If I wasn't as big as a house now, I'd already . . . I'd already have to fight myself to keep from draining everyone in this room dry. That's not going to last long though I'm afraid," Ileana said.
"Why is that, Lana, or do we really not want to know?" Dorothy asked.
"I'm already starting to gain a basic knowledge of how to fly," Ileana said in an upset voice.
"That's what I thought. I wonder if I still have a can of Nitro-9 handy in one of my pockets that are bigger on the inside," Dorothy said as she started searching through her clothes.
The others glared at her as she said, "I was only going to knock her out with it. You'll be thanking me for having it when she starts coming after us."
"Great. That's just wonderful. Even with Spider Lady dead, we still have to worry about Lana gobbling us whole. Plus the Ugly Brothers are still standing there staring at us. Wait a minute. Vicki's Whisper Girl vanished when she lost her power so how are . . .?" Donna asked herself in confusion.
"Ooh, that's a good question isn't it? I'll give you three guesses what the answer is, Red," The Weaver said as she suddenly appeared behind Tori and made her disappear with a single gesture.
"She's just tearing us apart one by one," Donna said in horror.
"There we go. Now she's getting an up close and personal look at what the end of time looks like. I can't have her disintegrating me again you know. That actually hurt. You have no idea how hard it is putting a body back together again atom by atom," The Weaver said with a chuckle.
"Let's see if you can do it a second time," Dorothy said as she suddenly threw a can of Nitro-9 at her.
Just as the can exploded, The Weaver froze time around it and stopped it in mid-explosion as she said, "Yes, that definitely would have done it alright. Unfortunately for you I'm a Time Lord though, and I already know how to manipulate time, Dorothy. Now let's see if you can put yourself back together again as well as I did."
She gestured at Dorothy and suddenly she found herself standing right next to the frozen can of Nitro-9. The Weaver waved goodbye to her just as she started to unfreeze the explosion.
She never got the chance to though as Calliope suddenly bombarded the entire room with an intense ear-shattering noise from her sonic device that took everyone including the Weaver by complete surprise. The noise was so loud that everyone held their hands over their ears in a futile attempt to block out the overwhelming sound.
They weren't even receiving the worst of it though. The Weaver was. She couldn't even hear herself scream as her eardrums ruptured and started bleeding. She immediately fell over as her equilibrium became completely knocked out as a result.
Calliope gestured at Emmy to move, and she now took advantage of the Weaver's complete helplessness to attempt to knock her out cold with a single punch. Unfortunately for Emmy, the Weaver had had just enough time to repair the damage done to her and had used the power of the Intelligence to make her newly recovered ears impervious to Calliope's sonic attack. The Weaver quickly grabbed Emmy's hand just before she could hit her and used the mutagene to devolve her into a reptilian creature that looked a lot like a Silurian that had been mated with a turtle.
Even as Emmy screamed as she saw what had been done to her, the Weaver knocked her out cold instantly.
"I think that new body of yours is a definite improvement. What's the matter, Calliope? Don't like your daughter's makeover? Let's see how you like this instead," The Weaver said as she started to devolve Calliope now too with a single gesture.
Suddenly she gasped for air as Lilith phased her hand through her back and grabbed one of her hearts!
"Guess what, Weaver? Your Whisper Men finally blinked and I won. I did learn something very useful from them though only I took it just one step further. I've always been a quick learner after all unfortunately for you. Now change the others back to normal or I'll show you what living with one heart is like. Permanently," Lilith said in a cold voice.
"Oh, you're good," Dorothy said appreciatively after quickly using this opportunity to get away from the frozen Nitro-9 explosion.
"Do you really think that you've won? I can survive without one of my hearts you know. I'll take you apart atom by atom long before you can destroy my other one," The Weaver said.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that if I were you, Time Lady. I'm very, very fast. Care to find out just how fast?" Lilith asked.
"Be careful, Carrionite. I may just call your bluff," The Weaver said.
"Why don't you then?" Lilith asked with a smirk.
Suddenly she screamed as a Yeti, the robotic kind this time, grabbed her by the neck and started strangling her. The Carrionite's eyes went back in her head, and she immediately went limp as the others watched in horror. Unfortunately that didn't make the Yeti stop. It continued strangling her long after she had stopped resisting it.
"Lilith!" Donna screamed.
"I was just waiting for my Yeti to do the job for me. That's why," The Weaver said with an evil cackle.
"You leave her alone, you heartless witch!" Donna shouted with her face contorted in anger.
The Weaver's laughter was immediately cut short as Donna attacked her with a telekinetic shove that surprised even her and pushed her straight into the frozen Nitro-9 explosion. Just as the Weaver got there, Donna used her Vortex Laptop to unfreeze the explosion and the evil Time Lady suddenly found herself right at Ground Zero as the long delayed Nitro-9 blast finally went off at last!
Just as the Weaver died, Victoria started to glow with power once again, and it instantly revived her. The power had immediately shunted back to its earlier host once it found itself with no place else to go.
Victoria now looked around her in shock as she saw that half of the Wolves were devolved into horrific looking creatures. Then she saw Donna checking an unmoving Lilith over with concern while a blown up Yeti lay in pieces beside her and Dorothy, who was still holding more cans of Nitro-9, surveyed her handiwork with a grin of approval. It was obvious to Victoria that Donna was absolutely distraught with worry.
"This is why I could never be your mother, Lilith. I can't even keep you safe for five minutes," Donna said to the still unconscious Carrionite.
Victoria could immediately see with her special senses as the Intelligence that Lilith was going to be okay.
"Don't worry, Donna. She's alright. She's a lot tougher than you think," Victoria said with a smile.
"Apparently so are you, Donna. I saw what you did. You used telekinesis didn't you?" Martha asked in surprise.
Donna nodded as she said, "I didn't even know that I could do that. I was just trying to save Lilith. All I could think of was that she was going to die after asking me to be her mum and that I would have let her down if she did. I'm glad that she's going to be alright, but it's no thanks to me."
"No thanks to you?! You singlehandedly took the Weaver out by yourself after she made mincemeat of the rest of us! I hope that'll be a message to all of those scumbags out there. Don't mess around with one of Donna's kids!" Dorothy said with a grin.
Donna smiled as she said, "I did do that, didn't I? Maybe I won't be such a bad mum to Lauren after all."
"You wouldn't be such a bad mum to me either," A newly awakened Lilith said.
"Are you sure that you want me and not someone better like Lana?" Donna asked.
"You just saved my life, Donna. I think I made the right choice," Lilith said.
"Then I accept, Witch Girl," Donna said as she hugged her.
Lilith smiled as for the first time in a long time she felt completely safe and loved once more.
It was now Victoria's turn to smile even as she used her power to see all of the things that the Weaver had done and began to slowly undo all of them. Even as she returned Ileana, Calliope, and Emmy back to normal and brought Tori back from the end of time, Victoria realized just how destructive the power that she now held once more could be in the wrong hands.
She still didn't want to be the Intelligence, but she also didn't trust the power with anyone else. As afraid as she was of someday being corrupted by it, she was even more afraid of someone who was already corrupt possessing it. She began to think that maybe she had gotten this power for a reason and that reason was to become its guardian in order to keep others safe from it. It made her more determined than ever to use the power only to help others and to never let it be used to cause anything like the carnage that she had first seen upon waking up ever again.
Rose smiled as she saw the determined look on Victoria's face and guessed what it meant while she and a still weak Kallista entered the room. She could see that Victoria had finally chosen the right path to ensure that she would become the great hero and protector that she had already seen that she might possibly be in the future. She was so happy for Victoria because she knew that she had been wrestling with having such great power for a long time now. At last she could finally set her mind at peace about it.
Rose could also see that Donna had changed as well. Donna seemed to have a newfound sense of self-confidence that she hadn't before. She was still far away from having a fully-developed ego and a positive self-image of herself just yet, but this was definitely a step in the right direction.
When she was told what had happened by Martha, she could only smile. When it came to saving others, Donna always came through no matter how low she felt about herself.
"Did you know that this would happen?" Martha asked as she studied Rose closely.
"No, not for sure but I hoped that it would," Rose said.
"So you knew that it might happen. That's why you haven't left the team yet. You wanted to make sure of it if you could," Martha realized with a grin.
"That's part of the reason, Martha. The other part is what's happening back at UNIT HQ right now," Rose said with a concerned look on her face.
"What?" Martha asked in alarm.
"You'll find out soon enough, Martha. Now that the Weaver is gone, we have to go back there as soon as possible. Luckily Lauren has already sent them a little help, but even the Doctor can only do so much. The team has to come together again in order to stop Dracula," Rose said.
"So he's finally made his move after the Weaver just trashed all of us. That's just wonderful," Martha said with a sigh.
"Don't worry, Martha. We may be down but we're far from being finished yet. Let's get back to Donna's TARDIS," Rose said.
Even as the others slowly went back, Rose stayed behind to wipe out all traces of the Weaver's mutagene and all of the rest of her twisted experiments from her TARDIS, and then she reprogrammed it to return to Gallifrey and seek out a new owner to bond with right away. She hoped that that put a permanent end to the Weaver's madness forever. She never wanted to cross paths with her again, and she definitely didn't want the Wolves to.
Even once was one time too many.
As Rose rushed to join the others and get out of there, back on Earth the rest of the Wolves still had an important decision to make. They only had ten minutes left to decide whether to let Dracula inside their headquarters or risk Stefania dying forever.
"We can't let him in here. He'll kill all of us and then wait here to ambush the others when they return. We have to come up with another way to help Stefania," Michelle said.
"Yes, but what? We're running out of time," Alina said in a panicked voice.
"Calm down. This is exactly what Dracula wants. He wants you to panic and do something rash so that he can outsmart you and find a way inside. The real question is why does he want inside? Did any of you ever think of that?" The Doctor asked.
Katherine looked at him with surprise as she said, "It's not just to get revenge on us and kill us is it? Come to think of it that's really not his style. He usually plays the long game instead of settling for simple revenge."
"Exactly right. So we must find out what his goal is and then offer to trade that to him for Stefania," The Doctor reasoned.
"Letting him have that, whatever it is, would be a really bad idea though," Michelle said.
"Not if we don't actually give it to him it won't. Osgood, did you ever find out just why Dracula was so interested in coming inside of here?" The Doctor asked.
Osgood smiled as she realized, "You did it, Doctor. You completely broke me from his control so I can actually tell you now. Revenge was definitely not all that he wanted. He wants to rebuild the devices that the Great Vampires had created that he had hidden under his castle. Calliope destroyed them you see but first she learned how to use them and being a Time Lord she also remembers what they looked like and how they worked. That means that she could rebuild them from the knowledge of them in her head. Dracula wants to capture Calliope and enslave her so that she can do exactly that for him. Then he'll use her Time Lord knowledge to improve on them to the point where he can take over this whole planet with them. Of course killing the rest of the Wolves in the process was going to be a little extra bit of fun for him."
"That's what I thought. He wants the technology of the Great Vampires back again. He must be planning on ambushing and capturing Calliope when she returns which is why he wants inside of here since she would never expect him to be here with all of the wards around this place. It's a brilliant plan actually," The Doctor said in an impressed voice.
"I'm glad that you're so in awe of the man who's out to kill us, Doctor. How about that you stop admiring him and help us come up with a way to stop him instead?" John said with a frown.
"John, stop that. If I know my Doctors and I do from traveling with Donald so much, then he's already done that," Joan said confidently.
The Doctor smiled at Joan as he said to John, "She's absolutely right. She's just as intelligent as she is beautiful I see. I can see why you'd marry her, but I still don't see why she'd marry you. She's definitely getting the bad end of that deal I'm afraid."
"Oi!" John said in protest as his hands curled into fists.
"John! He's just winding you up, John!" Joan said as she got in-between John and the Doctor.
"Yes, and he knows just how to push all of the right buttons to do it too," John said in anger.
"Of course I do. Who else knows you better than I do?" The Doctor grinned mischievously.
"You said that you had a plan, Doctor?" Michelle asked with a chuckle as she tried to keep the two men from killing each other.
"Yes, my dear, I certainly do. We tell Dracula that we have the knowledge that he wants on how to rebuild the ancient technology and that we'll give it to him in exchange for Stefania. We'll tell him that it's on this," The Doctor said as he suddenly summoned up a flash drive from the pocket dimension that Time Lords use to store things in.
"Do you really think that he'll fall for that?" Michelle asked.
"He'll be suspicious of course but he won't know for sure so he'll be very anxious to get this. We'll just have to use that to our advantage," The Doctor said.
"That sounds like one of the devious plans that you'd come up with alright, Professor," Dorothy suddenly said behind them.
The Doctor turned in surprise to see a Dorothy much older than the one that he had known standing there with the rest of the Bad Wolves and Victoria. They had all just returned after using the air ducts at Rose's recommendation to sneak back into their headquarters with so that Dracula wouldn't notice them.
"Hello, Doctor. It sounds like a great plan to me. I just hope that it works. Dracula's no fool, yeah?" Rose said.
"Of course not but hopefully his curiosity and his lust for power just may get the best of him yet," The Doctor said with a grin.
Then he suddenly wrapped his arms around Rose and gave her a long passionate kiss as Dorothy shook her head in the background.
"Some things never change no matter what version of the Professor's around. He'll still take time out from saving the world to snog Mum," Dorothy said in amusement.
"I can see why he wasn't interested in me now," Joan said with a smile.
"I am though," John said as he held her hand.
"Good because you're the one that I love not him. You don't ever have to be jealous of the other Doctors, John. It's you that I want," Joan reassured him.
John smiled and kissed her even as Amanda rolled her eyes and said, "I can't believe it. Dracula's out there trying to kill us and everyone's too busy kissing to even notice."
"Sometimes even in the middle of great danger you still have to take time out for the really important things in life. Speaking of which," Katherine said.
Then she hugged her and kissed her cheek as Amanda protested, "Aw, Mum! Don't! Not in front of the others!"
"Dorothy, we're running out of time here," Martha said as she gestured at Rose and the Doctor.
"It seems like this is always my job sooner or later no matter how old I get," Dorothy said with a sigh.
Dorothy physically pulled the Doctor off of Rose and said, "Come on, Professor. You can kiss Mum all you like later. Right now we have a major league scumbag to get rid of first. It'll be just like old times again won't it?"
"It definitely will, Ace. So you're still with Rose in the future I see. I'm glad. I knew that I could trust her to take care of you. Are you pregnant?" The Doctor asked in surprise as he now noticed the slight bulge in Dorothy's stomach.
"That's right. I'm finally going to have someone to teach my secret formula for Nitro-9 to," Dorothy said happily.
The Doctor grinned as he said, "I'm so happy for you, Ace. Your child will be out and about and blowing things up in no time I'm sure."
"Not if I can help it," Rose said.
"Aw, Mum!" Dorothy protested with a wicked grin.
"Excuse me but we have less than a minute left now," Alina reminded them.
Then as if to underscore this, Dracula's voice came from behind the door once more as he said, "Your time is almost up. What is your answer, Alina?"
"Come on, Professor. Let's get him," Dorothy said eagerly.
"Alina, follow my lead," The Doctor said as he and Alina started to open the door and head outside where Dracula was eagerly waiting.
Alina couldn't help but wonder if the Doctor's plan would work or not. If it didn't, what would happen to her sister?
Next: Finally the Wolves have their long awaited showdown with Dracula at last. Will he fall for the Doctor's plan or will he be too smart even for the most devious of all of the Doctors? Will Dracula gain the knowledge that he seeks or will the Wolves bring an end to him and his threat once and for all? Plus more on Donna's sudden new power.