CHAPTER 52
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It had been a long time since I had been back teaching at my job in 1890. I didn't want Holly to have to do my work for me forever after all. From what I'd heard from Allison though, Holly really didn't seem to mind. She had been posing as me by using a perception filter and staying in my living quarters while her friend, Skaren, had been posing as a new assistant for 'Diana Ceres' to replace Holly while she was supposedly away on vacation. Skaren, being a Zygon, was of course using a shimmer to pose as a human.
I idly wondered if maybe she would want to keep the job. If that was the case, then I would gladly give it to her. I loved teaching, but I knew that Holly deserved to have a job like that. She was an excellent teacher. I could tell that by the way that she had helped the students to improve themselves since I had known her. It wasn't really a part of her job to stay after school to help the students with something that they were having trouble understanding, and yet she always would if they asked her to do so.
She would also stay behind after hours every day to tutor some of them, and I always appreciated that. She wasn't even getting paid for it after all, at least not at first anyway. Someone may have arranged for her salary to be raised after giving the school board a glowing review of her work so far though. I'm not saying who, but I'm sure that you can guess.
After putting on a perception filter that made me look like my previous incarnation, I got into my TARDIS and quickly journeyed back to 1890. I had decided to go back early in the evening before the day that I had told Holly that I would return so that I would have plenty of time to prepare for the next morning's class. Of all the things that I was worried about facing as soon as I went back there, an invasion of the campus by vampires was not even on the list! You don't expect to face vampires your first day back on the job after all.
Unless you're a vampire hunter, of course. Luckily for me, I've been both a teacher and a vampire hunter in my time. Now there's a resume that's sure to pop any employer's eyeballs out of their sockets!
I thought that something seemed wrong as soon as I appeared. There was an eerie calm in the area, and everything was quiet. I had materialized my TARDIS a few feet away from my living quarters so that I could take a good walk around the campus and familiarize myself with it again. I hadn't been here since losing Robin after all, and that had been a while back.
After about fifteen minutes of walking across the campus and somehow inexplicably encountering absolutely no one along the way, I finally came to the building where my living quarters were located. I was about to go inside when a vampire appeared out of nowhere and attacked me. This didn't exactly faze me though since I was fighting vampires since before humanity came down out of the trees. Something seemed very wrong about it though all the same besides the obvious. It was like I had suddenly stepped into a dream somehow. Unfortunately, I was still wide awake though.
My natural reflexes took over, and I sent the vampire flying across the campus and into a nearby tree. Before it could even get up off of the ground, I had raced to the tree and broke a thick branch off of it. I then pushed the branch through the vampire's heart, and it instantly fell down to the ground unmoving but didn't disintegrate!
Now I knew something was wrong. Something had felt off from the moment that I arrived here, and this just proved it. I knew that some vampires didn't disintegrate when you killed them, but none of those were in Mutter's Spiral; and it was unlikely that any of those species would have reached the Earth. The hunger of most vampires won't let them travel that far. They're into instant gratification and have to be fed on a regular basis.
I had recognized the vampire as being one of the professors at the college, and I was saddened that it had been someone that I had known and worked with for a long time. That was one of the reasons that I had always hated vampires so much. They took people that you knew and instantly turned them into your enemies. Then you were forced into a horrible choice as it was either kill or be killed by those who you had once cared for. To me, they were some of the worst monsters of all just for that reason.
"Lily!" Holly screamed as she came running up to me.
"What is going on here?" I asked her in confusion.
"I have no idea. Everything was going fine until just a few minutes ago. Then all of a sudden, everyone started screaming outside. I went out to look and found that a lot of the instructors had been turned into vampires, and they were attacking the students. It was like every student's worst nightmare come to life. I've been running from the vampires non-stop ever since and just barely kept from winding up one myself. I'm so glad that you decided to turn up for work today of all days. I don't think that I could have survived much longer," Holly confided in me.
"It's okay, Holly. I'll soon have this all sorted out. I'm an old hand at getting rid of a massive group of vampires as quickly and efficiently as possible," I said to her with a confident grin.
My first job right away was to put my friend at ease. I had to let her know that she was safe as long as she stayed with me. The last thing that I needed was for her to panic and not think clearly. That led to nothing but mistakes, and one mistake no matter how simple could be deadly when dealing with vampires. I had learned that a long time ago.
"Most of the students have taken refuge inside of the main dorm area. They have barricaded themselves into the building so that nothing can get in there. They wouldn't even let me in. They were afraid that I was a vampire trying to trick them," Holly said.
"They should have known better than that. Vampires are much paler, and they don't breathe. You're practically hyperventilating. That's two things that should tip anyone with half a brain off that you're still human right from the start. They're not thinking clearly at all though. They're panicking. That's one of a vampire's best weapons it its ability to cause a panic; and these creatures, if they really are vampires, are certainly using that to their full advantage," I said to her.
"I just don't understand how they spread that quickly. Everything seemed alright just a few minutes before when I came back from having gone to the teachers' lounge. Everyone there seemed fine that I later saw as vampires," Holly said.
"That doesn't make sense. I've never heard of any vampires that can turn people that quickly," I said in astonishment. That was saying something too since I had probably faced off against every kind of vampire that ever existed in my time.
"I don't know how to explain it. It's all been happening so quickly that I haven't had much time to think about it. I've just been reacting instead of trying to reason things out," Holly said.
"Something doesn't seem right. This is more like a hallucination than reality. It's felt that way since it all began," I said.
"There's a major clue for you," Koschei said as he suddenly came running up to us.
"What's going on here? Where did you come from so quickly?" I asked him.
"This is not what it seems to be, Lily. Haven't you realized that yet?" Koschei said.
I had felt like something was a little off since I had gotten here. This whole place had a surreal almost fantasy like quality to it from the start.
"Yes, I did actually. Would you care to fill me in on it if you know already? It would save me a lot of time and might save some lives. Oh and why aren't you calling Mum? You were doing it the last time that I saw you. I thought that you had finally started to accept me as your mother," I said disappointed.
I had to admit that I was just a little upset by him calling me by my name instead of Mum. I had thought that we had made more progress in our relationship than that.
"I didn't do it to be hateful if that's what you think. I just need a little time to get used to it, okay? For me to call you that on a regular basis is going to take a while. I don't want to talk about this right now though. I need to let you know what's happening here so that I can get you out of it," Koschei said.
"Well, tell me already and end the suspense," I said.
"The so-called vampires are all androids, and so are all of the students. Everyone here has been replaced for the sole purpose of trapping you. They decided to try android vampires to throw you off balance and to keep you from guessing what was really going on because you arrived at such an odd time and surprised them," Koschei said.
I looked at Holly with suspicion for a moment, and she began to look worried. She knew that I thought that she was an android too.
"I'm not a machine if that's what an android is. I'm real I swear," Holly said in an upset voice.
"Of course she'd say that. She's trying to fool you. Everyone here is an android. They're trying to study you and learn how best to capture you alive without harming you," Koschei said.
"Who's doing this though and why?" I asked.
"The Kraals. They want to use you to create a new model of androids that can use your fighting skills and abilities to conquer planets for them. They still haven't found a new home for themselves, and they're running out of time. The radiation levels of their home planet, Oseidon, have become so high that they're all dying. They need to create a new means of conquering a new home world for themselves quickly, or their entire race will become extinct in a matter of months," Koschei said.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Maybe I could help them in some other way than by being used to help them conquer some other unsuspecting planet though. I'm no slouch in the hi-tech department after all. I could come up with some way to bring their radiation level down to a more manageable level perhaps if they call this whole thing off. That is if they haven't hurt the people at this school. Are they alright? If they're not, then I won't help them no matter what," I said firmly.
"They are fine at the moment. They are all being held in a state of suspended animation. The Kraals have no use for them and will replace them when they have you," Koschei said.
"You seem to be pretty confident about that. Have you worked with the Kraals in the past?" I asked.
"Yes, of course. I worked with just about any alien species that I could in order to kill the Doctor. None of them ever were able to help me accomplish that though unfortunately," Koschei said.
"Lily, I'm not a machine. I'm real," Holly said again.
"Don't listen to her. She's been programmed to say anything in order to lead you into a trap," Koschei said.
"It's not true. I'm human. Please believe me," Holly said in tears.
"Where is Skaren?" I asked her.
"I don't know. I haven't seen him in a while. I sent him to one of the other buildings to get the new curriculum that we're supposed to be using soon. I hope nothing's happened to him," Holly said with worry.
"All of the humans have been taken by the Kraals and are unharmed. They've heard of your love for humanity so they're not going to do anything to make you fight even harder. They don't want to bring out Sekhmet after all by making you angry," Koschei said.
"So all of the humans in the school have been captured then," I said with my emphasis on the word humans.
"Yes. Why do you keep asking me that?" Koschei asked curiously.
"No reason. So do you think that Skaren's a nice name for a human? I always thought so. I like that name," I said.
"What are you talking . . . ," Holly started to say, and I quickly silenced her with a glance.
"What do I care about the names of humans? Why would you ask me a silly question like that at a time like this?" Koschei asked in confusion.
I began to glow with regenerative energy and blasted 'Koschei' with it. He fell to the ground, and his face fell off to reveal that he was the android.
"How did you know that he was the android? I mean besides the fact that he didn't know that Skaren's a Zygon," Holly asked with a relieved look on her face.
"He knew just a little too much about the Kraals and their plans to be believable. Also, I've never heard of him working with them as the Master. He always worked with higher profile aliens like the Daleks who would build up his reputation as someone to be feared. Another tip off was that Koschei would have known that Skaren was in no way a human name. Apparently, the Kraals didn't completely copy his memories. They must have been in as big of a hurry as the fake Koschei claimed that they were," I explained.
"How did you know that I was real? A copy of me with my memories could have told them that you were coming back today after all. It didn't but it could have," Holly pointed out.
"I came back earlier than I told you that I would so they wouldn't have come here now. If it had been you that was the android, then you would have told them to come tomorrow morning. When I saw the look of concern and worry on your face when you talked about Skaren, I knew that it was really you anyway. Most androids are not capable of being that emotional except for Megan, and that's because her mind was human from the start," I said.
"Do you think that Skaren's okay?" Holly asked.
"I don't think that they've found him yet. They must not have captured everyone, or they would have already gotten you. The barricaded students are obviously still human as well. They thought that they would take over my school so that the next time that I came here that they would take me by surprise. Luckily. I came back right in the middle of their little scheme and foiled it. They must have sent in a Koschei android to take advantage of my new feelings for him in the hopes that I would let down my guard around him so that he would lead stupid little me into a trap easier. I just wonder if that means that he actually did come here to see me, and he's been captured too. I'm sure that he has. It would be just my luck that something like that would happen," I said with a sigh.
"What do we do?" Holly asked as she continued to look all around us as if she could find Skaren somewhere if she looked hard enough.
I had no idea what Holly's true feelings for Skaren were, but I was pretty sure that they went beyond just friendship. She always denied having any kind of romantic feelings for him whatsoever, but I wasn't sure that I believed her though. I wondered if she even knew the truth herself.
"The Koschei android said that they were watching me. So maybe I can bring them to me," I said thinking out loud.
I quickly went to the center of the campus followed by a very reluctant Holly to make sure that I couldn't escape their notice, and then I began to shout out to the skies above me as loud as I could. I'm sure under other circumstances that I would have looked like a complete loon, but I had to make a spectacle of myself in order to draw the Kraals' attention. Besides acting completely mad just comes second nature to me. That's not as scary to me as you'd think either.
"Well, I'm here. Come and get me. That's not going to be as easy as you think it is though. If you know anything about me, that's going to be downright impossible. If I can kill the King of the Great Vampires, then I think that I can handle a bunch of third-rate androids with little difficulty, don't you? How about I try to help you make your own planet a better place to live instead of trying to force me to help you in taking someone else's? That would make more sense and wind up wasting less time, wouldn't it? I mean do you want to wind up losing all of your crummy little robots and have me still standing here shouting at you at the end of the day, or do you want to actually come down here and talk to me face to face like an adult?" I shouted.
Moments later, one of the Kraals transmatted down in front of me, and Holly backed away from him nervously. I smiled at her, and she calmed down a little bit and stayed where she was. Holly was very brave when the occasion called for it, but most of the time she was so nervous in new situations or around new aliens that I thought that she would explode. It was the only reason that I hadn't taken her on as my companion. Otherwise, she would be perfect for the job.
"You would help us even after what we have done?" the Kraal asked in surprise.
"Yes, as long as everyone that you've kidnapped is returned safely including my son," I said firmly.
"Agreed. For the record, I was against this idea from the start. It was the wish of our commander. No one was harmed though. I made sure of that," the Kraal said.
"Thank you. Your name is?" I asked.
"Kratos. I am the chief scientist in charge of the androids. I tried to tell them that this was the wrong way to approach you, but I was overruled," Kratos said.
"I'm glad that you're the one who was sent to talk to me then. I would have probably had to knock your boss unconscious it sounds like," I joked.
"You know him then?" Kratos said with a grin.
I liked him already. He had a sense of humor just like mine.
"Did you take over the ship?" I asked him.
Kratos looked surprised as he said, "How did you know that? You are as clever as the legends say, mighty Sekhmet."
"It's Lily. I kinda figured it out from the way that you're meeting me instead of this nutball leader of yours. That and no one's attacked me since I destroyed the Koschei android," I said.
"When the crew saw you so effortlessly take down the android, they staged a coup and elected me the leader. I'll return everyone. We never did capture a Zygon by the way. I have no idea where he is," Kratos said to a still nervous Holly.
"Where could he be then?" Holly said upset.
I saw a flicker of movement from far off in the distance for just a second, and I shouted, "It's okay, Skaren. Come on over."
Skaren slowly made his way out from behind a tree, and Holly ran to him. She then surprised everyone, even herself I'd say from the look on her face, when she kissed him.
Her face turned bright red as she tried to cover it up by saying, "I was just so glad that you were okay. That's all that was."
Sure, Holly! I don't think even you believe that.
Skaren couldn't stop smiling as Holly looked away from him uncomfortably. I think that even she didn't know how she felt at the moment. I would have to ask her about that some other time, and I would believe me. I'm not known as a master matchmaker for nothing, you know.
That was the end of it all then. Kratos returned everyone back to the college that the Kraals had taken with no memory of what had occurred to them, and I quickly got the students who hadn't been captured to come out of their barricaded building. After a little talking to them, I convinced them to forget what they had seen, and they agreed. They all knew that I was more than I seemed even if they didn't know the full truth, and they trusted me when I said that it was better to never mention this again to anyone.
I then gave Kratos a few tips on reducing the radiation on his planet. I even rigged up a quick little device that they could use to lessen it right away to at least a tolerable level so that everyone would quit dying and have a chance to come up with a long term solution to the problem.
"Thank you, Lily. I'm glad to have met you. I would be proud to call you friend," Kratos said.
"As would I. Until I see you again, my good friend, Kratos," I said as I shook his hand.
"I'm sure that we will meet again. I'll probably be coming to you for ideas about how to fix my planet," Kratos admitted.
"You're welcome to come at any time. I'm all for giving less reasons for idiots to go charging across the universe attacking other planets and generally shooting things up," I said cheerfully.
"I think that particular idiot will be demoted when we get back. At least, I'll do my best to ensure that he does," Kratos said.
The Kraals left then, and Koschei came walking up to me with a shamed look on his face. I thought that I knew him well enough to know what was bothering him, but I asked him anyway.
"I can't believe that I've been reduced to this. The once mighty Master was taken captive by the Kraals of all people and had to be rescued by his mother. Please don't tell the Doctor about this! I'd never live it down," Koschei said mournfully.
"I promise. I'd never give the Doctor that kind of ammunition anyway. He's the enemy as far as I'm concerned," I said happily.
"Thank you! I'm so glad to have you as a mother. I've finally found someone who hates the Doctor almost as much as I do, and she's my mother! It's destiny I tell you! I love you, Mum," Koschei said.
I think I'll just end it there, folks. I never like to let people see me cry.
Next: Part 3 of my Silence storyline will take place here next time as the Silence start their final battle against the Doctor. Come back next time to see Lily take on Kovarian after she learns the full truth about Cassiopeia. It's always a big mistake to anger Sekhmet as the Silence will soon learn.