CHAPTER 17

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Author's Note: The story now takes place after Children of the Night. The events in this story take place in the future of that one.

The Slitheen stood there like they were in a trance and stared blankly ahead. They were just puppets on a string Lily realized. She was very curious now to meet the puppeteer. Who was this Animus that they mentioned; and why did he, she or it want her so badly?

Holly looked equally terrified of both the Slitheen and the gun being pointed at her head by one of them. Rose wasn't going to let her get put through that for one second longer. She gazed intently at the gun for a moment, and it dissolved into dust in the Slitheen's hand. The fact that the Slitheen that had been holding the gun didn't even notice and was still holding his hand in the same position as before told Rose that they were totally gone. There was no one at home except for the puppet master of the group.

"Who are you? Why do you want me so badly?" Lily asked the Slitheen as a whole in an attempt to get a response from the real architect of this little kidnapping scheme.

"We must bring you to the Animus," the Slitheen kept chanting together in a trance.

"Come out and talk to me! I want to talk to the real mind behind all of this. Show yourself, you coward!" Lily taunted her unseen foe.

The assassin that had brought Lily here was hiding around the corner and stood against the wall listening to what was going on. He was curious as to what was really going on himself. He hadn't bargained on having to deal with the Bad Wolf! He thought that he was working for the Slitheen, and then it turns out that they were the pawns of someone else. He had been played for a fool; and even worse, he still hadn't gotten paid yet!

Now he was glad that he hadn't killed that Zygon yet. Maybe he could get a big ransom from his very rich family to make up for losing the bounty on Persephone. The frog face might be worth more alive than dead after all!

He was going to find out what was what here before he did anything else though. He saw those gold bracelets that the Slitheen were wearing. He wondered if he could get paid more by whoever the real boss was. The Slitheen certainly seemed like that they had a good deal going with them if they could afford expensive looking jewelry like that.

After several minutes of unsuccessful prodding of the Slitheen by Lily, Rose finally decided to see if she could find the one behind all of this with her Bad Wolf powers somehow.

She looked at the Slitheen and could see all of the interactions between them and everyone else in their lives as she flowed back through the events of their recent past. It was like watching a movie about their lives except that it was all real. She rewound back further and further through their pasts until she came to a day about a month ago that all of them had been in the same place at the same time.

They had been summoned to the planet Vortis by a group of aliens that were basically giant ants called the Zarbi. The Zarbi had offered to give them expensive gold bracelets in exchange for what they said was a real estate deal. They had asked the Slitheen to come and look at some real estate on Vortis. They pretended that they were interested in getting the Slitheen to invest in land on the planet in order to jumpstart their economy.

This was a lie though. Rose saw the Zarbi grabbing the Slitheen and forcing them to wear the bracelets as soon as they landed. This was because they had quickly discovered to their surprise that the whole planet was a dying wasteland covered by pools of acid everywhere! The bracelets somehow made them able to be controlled by the Animus.

The Animus was the ruler of Vortis. This mysterious entity totally controlled the near mindless Zarbi and had made them the dominant species on the planet. It had also driven off or enslaved most of the Menoptera, who looked like giant butterflies with four enormous wings that enabled them to fly into space. The Menoptera had ruled the planet until the Animus came and overthrew them. It had turned a once vibrant and growing world covered with flowers into a pale shadow of its former self.

Its horrible reign ended when the Doctor arrived and destroyed it. He brought the exiled Menoptera back to the planet and freed the rest of them. He then left in the assurance that he had given them back their world.

Rose could see what happened next though. The Animus had left a seed behind that was unseen by the Doctor and had hid its consciousness inside of it. It was later reborn into a new body when the seed hatched and took over the planet yet again. The Time War finally seemed to have destroyed it forever, but now it seemed that it had somehow survived even that.

Rose could see the Slitheen leaving the planet and putting out a contract on Lily's head per the orders of the Animus.

Her visions of the past then changed as she could now see the Animus trapping the Monk when he happened to land there by mistake at around the same time as the Slitheen had arrived. The Animus had tried to get the Monk to capture Lily and bring her to Vortis. The Monk's will had been too strong though, and he had overcome his programming and instead tried to kill her instead of letting the Animus have her. She couldn't see why the Monk feared the Animus getting Lily so much or why the Animus even wanted her in the first place.

Rose dissolved all of the gold bands except one and freed the Slitheen from the Animus' control. She kept one of them that she had pulled off of a Slitheen instead of dissolving it.

"What is happening?" one of the Slitheen said as it came out of its trance.

The others looked around them in confusion as well. Their last memories had been of being grabbed from behind by the Zarbi on Vortis.

"You were enslaved by the real ruler of Vortis, the Animus. It enslaved you with these gold bands that you wanted so badly. There's kind of a lesson there about greed becoming your master I'd say," Rose said as she held up the one band that she had kept.

"Yes, I remember now. They tricked us! I'll give you the location of Vortis in exchange for your promise to go there and make sure that the Animus pays for its actions!" the lead Slitheen said in an extremely angry tone.

They immediately gave up the location of Vortis to them, but Rose never said for sure that she would or wouldn't do anything to the entity. She had to find out more about it first and what it wanted.

Rose, Lily, and Holly then got into Rose's TARDIS and made their way to Vortis to find out just what the Animus' game was.

The assassin, who had also overheard Vortis' coordinates, went there as well in his own ship with the captured Zygon still on board. He was going to get some credits out of this one way or another!

As the three women arrived on Vortis, Lily began to act strangely. She put her hands to her head and looked worriedly at Rose.

"Something's in my mind trying to take me over. You're got to take Holly and get out of here," Lily warned Rose.

Rose shook her head no. She wasn't leaving her mother here alone no matter what happened. Rose waved her hand and sent Holly to Lily's friends and family. She would be safe with them no matter what happened here.

"Why didn't you go? It wants to use me as its new body. It wants me to try to kill you!" Lily warned Rose as she continued to fight the Animus' control.

"I thought as much; but I still can't leave you, mum. I won't leave you alone here with that thing in your head!" Rose told her defiantly.

"Then you will die here, Bad Wolf! You will be the first to fall to me in my new form! It is somehow fitting that the one who ended the Time War be the first one to fall at my hand. It was the Time War that destroyed my last form after all. Fortunately, I did not die completely. I hid my consciousness among the faithful Zarbi and used them to deliver the perfect host to me. A host that can never die!" said a voice from out of Lily's mouth that wasn't hers.

Rose watched in horror as Lily started to glow as she was being enslaved by the will of the Animus.

"I won't let you do it! You're never going to make me hurt my daughter! Never!" Lily screamed out.

Rose could see her struggling bravely against the Animus' control, but she wondered how long even Lily could hold out against the power that she could feel emanating from the evil entity.

Next: Robin and the others arrive to help save Lily from the Animus before it's too late. Plus Rose finally gets to meet Ron!