CHAPTER 53
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This story continues from Oswin Oswald, Time's Guardian Chapter 22.
I had just been told by Rose that the woman who was number one on my hit list, Madame Kovarian, was at the UNIT base in Peru. So naturally I was on my way there in my TARDIS to rip her apart. I had originally decided to go there by myself since I knew that Sekhmet would probably take over when I came across Kovarian, but certain people had other ideas.
"I can always drop you off somewhere if you want," I hinted to Allison.
"I'm not going anywhere," Allison said stubbornly.
"This isn't going to be a picnic, Freya. If Sekhmet comes out, I don't know what might happen," I warned her.
"I've fought alongside you before, Mum. The only difference between then and now is that you know that I'm your daughter now. Besides, Sekhmet would never hurt me. I already know that. We've met before inside your mind, remember? Oh, and stop calling me Freya. I told you that I hate that name!" Allison said.
"You'll get used to it sooner or later. You're right when you say that Sekhmet would never intentionally hurt you, but she is unpredictable when I let her out. She might get you hurt by accident, and I don't want that to happen," I said worried.
"Then don't let her out. How about that?" Allison said as she looked at me intently.
"I can't guarantee that. Rose told me how Kovarian kidnapped her first daughter and brainwashed her into thinking that she didn't love her and had abandoned her. She even made Rose forget her. It just makes me furious. She took her daughter away from her and made her forget her!" I said with intense emotion in my voice.
"You can sympathize, can't you?" Allison said as she put her hand on my shoulder.
"Yes. Rassilon did the same thing to me by messing around with my mind. He made me forget you. It just makes me furious that other people keep tearing my family apart. I want it to end. I'm going to make it end here and now. I'm going to make an example out of this woman that will tell everyone everywhere that you don't mess around with me and mine," I said in a display of anger that made Allison flinch.
"Sorry," I said in a gentle voice.
"I won't let you," Allison said.
"What?" I asked.
"I won't let you become all vengeful and do something that I know that you'll regret later. You've never been a cold blooded killer before, Mum, and I won't let you become one now. That's what I'm here for, Mum. I've come to keep both you and Sekhmet under control," Allison finally admitted.
I frowned at her while I was secretly proud of her at the same time. She knew that her mere presence would keep me from going too far.
"Something else is bothering you, isn't it?" Allison asked.
"Yes. You know me so well, don't you? I never mentioned Cassiopeia, Allison. Not once," I said.
"What do you mean?" Allison asked.
"I never mentioned her or even brought up her name one time since I told Rose the truth about who I was. If I had talked about her even once, I could have made Rose remember her. Then we would have known that something was wrong. I didn't though. It's been about two years since I revealed myself to her, and I never talked about my granddaughter once. I'm a horrible person, Allison," I said.
"No, you're not. You're the best mother in the universe. I don't know why you never brought her up, but I know that you had a good reason for it," Allison said with the kind of absolute confidence in me that only a child can have in their parents.
"I thought that the reason that she never talked about her was because it hurt her too much to mention her. That's why I didn't say anything. I still should have though. If only I had, maybe we could have gotten Cassiopeia away from that woman sooner," I said.
"Will you stop blaming yourself for things that are in no way your fault? You're the worst person about running on guilt trips on yourself that I've ever seen. There is no way that any of this is your fault," Allison said.
"Thanks. I'm still not sure that I believe that, but I appreciate the sentiment," I told her as I gave her a short hug.
"That's what I'm here for. To bring you back down to reality," Allison said happily.
"That's a full-time job in itself," I joked.
The TARDIS landed deep inside of the UNIT base in Peru at a pre-arranged location that the Brigadier had given to Colonel Mace on the phone. Allison and I stepped out and waited for him to appear. We didn't have long to wait as it turned out.
"Miss Wright, I presume?" a voice called from underneath us.
"That's correct but I prefer Mrs. Wright now. I've gotten married recently," I said as I flashed my ring at him.
"Yes, I heard about that. Your wedding turned into a fight with a giant vampire. Those kinds of situations always tended to be the Doctor's sort of thing in the past," the Brigadier said through a grate underneath my feet.
"Well, he was there so I'll blame him. I usually blame him for everything anyway. Good hiding place by the way. Isn't it a bit cramped down there?" I asked him.
"Not at all. I supervised this building of this place, and I put in a secret access tunnel to an underground bunker right here. I made sure that even I could use it with my bad leg. I knew that I would probably have to wind up using it someday. A lifetime of being around the Doctor has made me prepare for any situation," the Brigadier said.
"It would. He's very good at getting everyone around him into trouble. So can we come in? This is my daughter, Freya, by the way," I said.
"The name is Allison," Allison said through gritted teeth.
"I'm your mother. I called you Freya so you're Freya," I said obstinately.
"I like Allison. That's who I always have been and who I always will be. Allison. Allison Wright," Allison said.
I looked at her in surprise, and I began to smile. She had never told me that she wanted to change her name.
"Parker was never my real last name. They made it up at the orphanage. I decided that I'd rather take yours instead," Allison said.
"It's not really mine either. I made mine up too," I admitted.
"I know but I'd rather have your made up last name than my own," Allison said.
"Thank you. Hello then, Allison Wright. It's so very nice to meet you," I said as I embraced her happily.
"You called me Allison," Allison pointed out with a grin.
"So I did. I'm old and forgetful. I'm entitled to a few mistakes. You'll have to look over me, Freya," I said with a giggle.
As Allison groaned in anguish, the Brigadier smiled at us and opened the grate from the inside. The two of us stepped inside, and he quickly set the grate back in place and pushed a button that slid a metal cover over it to hide it.
"Neat trick. I can do you one better though," I said as I pulled out a remote and brought my TARDIS down into the tunnel with us.
"It wouldn't do to have it spotted, would it?" I asked with a crazy grin on my face.
"It's very nice to meet you at last, Mrs. Wright. Your daughter Rose has told me all about you," the Brigadier said.
"It's very nice to meet you too, Brigadier. Now, you don't want to believe everything that Rose says. She only says good things about me and leaves out the best parts. I'm much crazier in person," I said with glee.
"I can certainly believe that. It's very nice to meet you as well, Miss Wright. That was what you had decided on, wasn't it?" the Brigadier asked Allison.
"Yes it is. It's also nice to meet you, and thanks for calling me by that name. I'd prefer that you call me Allison though," Allison said.
"While you're at it, you might as well just call me Lily or Crazy Lily whichever suits you. I'm sure by the end of the day, you'll be glad to add the Crazy to my name," I said.
"Will you stop, Mum?" Allison said in irritation.
"Stop what?" I asked innocently.
"Stop with the Crazy Lily act. It's embarrassing," Allison said.
"It never bothered you before," I said.
"That was before I knew that you were my Mum. Now people are going to think that I'm crazy too," Allison said.
"So? Is that a bad thing?" I asked mischievously.
Allison groaned in frustration again, and I laughed at her. I loved playing with her like that.
The Brigadier just looked at the two of us with amusement. After meeting me and the Doctor, I'm sure that the Brigadier probably thinks that all Time Lords are insane.
"What's the best way of reaching Kovarian undetected?" I asked him as I became completely serious.
I saw a look of triumph come over the Brigadier's face as if something that he had guessed about me had been confirmed just then. No doubt he had seen through my crazy act and saw that this was my true persona. He certainly didn't seem too surprised by my sudden change in personality.
"This entire base is honeycombed in tunnels per my instructions. There is one that leads straight to where Kovarian runs everything. Most of the time she stays in the communications center so that she can be ready to respond to any changes in the war against Earth at a moment's notice," the Brigadier informed me.
"Funny, she sounds just like me then. I have the numbers of every major leader on Earth forwarded to my handy little cell phone. I'm running everything from the TARDIS," Rose said as she appeared in front of us.
Rose wasn't there in person though. I could tell that right away as she felt odd in some way. Something seemed off about her even though she appeared to be solid. Call it mother's intuition if you will.
Rose must have noticed me staring at her as she said, "No, it's not really me. Well, it is me but it isn't. It's an Old One trick that I learned from Ishtar. It's called bilocation. I created a duplicate of myself that's linked directly to me so that I can literally be in two places at once. It's a little hard to have my concentration divided between two versions of me at once, but I suppose I'll get better at that later on."
"You're getting just as bad as the Doctor is I think," I said as I joked around with her.
"I am not. So are you ready to take her on yet?" Rose asked me.
"Almost. We're finding out more about that from the Brigadier now," I said.
"I can't stay here long. I'm just here for a moment to warn you that Cassiopeia might be coming. She popped up to help Oswin recently and surprised her. Then Oswin says that she disappeared. If she comes to help you, please don't let her go up against Kovarian by herself," Rose said.
"I'll watch out for her I promise," I said.
"Thanks. I just don't want that woman getting a chance to do anything to her anymore," Rose said with a worried look on her face.
"I'll make sure of that. I'm going to make sure that she never hurts anyone ever again," I told her in a cold voice.
"Mum, I don't like that tone in your voice. I want to make her pay too, but you can't go charging in there and let Sekhmet loose. You'll wind up getting yourself killed," Rose said with concern.
"I can't die. That's been proven for a long time now," I said.
"Maybe not but Allison can. I don't want anything happening to her. Keep your emotions in check, Mum," Rose said.
"Don't worry about us, Rose. We'll be fine and so will Cassiopeia if she shows up here," I assured her.
"Good. I'll see you later then," Rose said as she disappeared right in front of us.
"That sort of thing would have bothered me a long time ago, but nowadays I barely blink at it," the Brigadier admitted.
"She's been hanging around the Doctor too much I think. I'm going to have some more mother-daughter moments with her in the future in order to try to exorcise him from her mind," I said.
Allison just shook her head at me with a smile on her face without making any comments.
The Brigadier showed me the correct tunnel to use, and Allison and I went walking up it until we found the correct place to exit it by hearing Kovarian's voice. We sat and listened for a while as we heard her ordering the Silence around and talking with the other Silence outposts throughout the world.
I knew that if I could stop her here that I would be dealing a major blow to the Silence. They would no longer have a central leadership guiding them all with a single purpose in mind. They would be much easier to defeat if they were divided into smaller disorganized groups.
"I left an important piece of equipment back in the TARDIS. Why don't you go get it for me? I'll wait here until you get back with it. It's a little cylinder about the size of my hand. It'll really help us against the Silence. I left it sitting on the console," I whispered to Allison.
Allison looked at me with a warm smile as she said, "Nice try, Mum. I'm not going anywhere."
"I had to try. I don't like the idea of you going in there around that woman after what she did to Cassiopeia," I said.
"I'll be fine, Mum. I promise," Allison said.
I wasn't very reassured by that. I had felt guilty about taking Allison into danger when I thought that she was just my best friend. Now that I knew that she was so much more than that to me, I felt like the worst mother in the universe.
"What was in the cylinder?" Allison asked in curiosity.
"Chocolate ice cream. The cylinder keeps it perfectly frozen until I'm ready to eat it. The lid even transforms into a little spoon at the touch of a button," I said.
Allison gave me a funny look to which I responded by saying, "What? Most Time Lords have a certain food that they're addicted to. Mine is chocolate ice cream. It could be worse. I could be stuffing my mouth with jelly babies all of the time."
"I hope that I never get a weird food craving," Allison said with a frown on her face.
"I don't think so. You've been a human so long that you'll probably always think like one. Not that there's anything wrong with that," I said.
"Good. I liked being human," Allison said.
"I could always make you human again if you want with the Chameleon Arch," I suggested.
"No. I'm okay. I just don't want to lose contact with that side of myself. It's precious to me," Allison said.
"You won't. I promise," I said encouragingly to her.
"Are you ready?" Allison asked as she tried to get me to quit stalling.
"Let's go," I said as I looked at her with trepidation in my eyes.
We both burst through into the Silence's main communications hub without being spotted at the moment. Allison and I quickly put on our eye patches that allowed us to remember seeing the Silence, and then we silently made our way toward Kovarian. She was talking to one of her base commanders in Paris and didn't seem to notice our arrival at all.
I began to bring forth my regenerative energy and concentrated it into my hands. I then slowly walked forward towards Kovarian. If I could just take her by surprise from behind, this would all be over with.
Before I could reach her however, I was suddenly surrounded by an entire army of Silence who seemed to pour out of the woodwork. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as I realized too late that I had just fallen into a trap.
The Silence began to fire electricity from their hands at me and Allison. Allison screamed as she dodged the deadly bolts while I deflected them with the energy surrounding me.
"That's pretty good, boys. I'm sure that looks very impressive to anyone else. I'm not easy to kill though. Now it's my turn!" I said as I gestured to Allison to hit the ground.
As soon as Allison lay down on the ground, I unleashed a massive blast of regenerative energy that instantly knocked out all of the Silence around me. Several more Silence entered the room now, and I did the same thing to them as well. I could do this all day if I had to so fighting me this way wasn't doing them any good.
Kovarian suddenly swiveled around with a strange looking gun in her hand that I had never seen before. She aimed it at Allison where she lay on the ground, and I instantly became terrified.
"This gun has the power to turn a Time Lord into a human, Miss Wright. I assume that this girl is important to you. If you care anything about her, you'll surrender peacefully now. If you don't, then I'll turn her into a human and have one of the Silence turn her into dust," Kovarian threatened.
"Don't worry about me, Mum. I'll be okay. You have to stop her. The world is more important than I am," Allison said.
"I'll do it, Miss Wright. Don't believe for a moment that I won't. I'll turn this girl into dust right in front of your eyes. Maybe I should do it anyway just to see the look on your face. I think I would enjoy that," Kovarian said with cold, callous laughter as her finger began to tighten on the trigger of the gun.
What happened next became a blur to me as my mind became flooded with anger. She had threatened one of the people that I loved more than anyone and that had brought forth Sekhmet. I'll do my best to tell you what I remember about what happened next, however, based on my own dim memories of it and the accounts of those who witnessed it.
Sekhmet had emerged against my will, and Kovarian looked at me now with absolute terror on her face as she saw nothing but a cold, dead look in my eyes. She realized in that moment that something had changed and not for the better.
I began to glow brightly and discharged a massive burst of energy from my hands and incinerated Kovarian's gun instantly. Kovarian screamed because I had taken part of her hand with the gun. Sekhmet has no mercy.
"My hand! You witch! You melted my hand!" Kovarian screamed in agony.
"You threatened the girl," I said in a cold, dead voice as if that would explain everything.
"Mum, don't do anything more. I'm okay," Allison said as she got to her feet and slowly walked over to me.
"Kill them! Both of them!" Kovarian screeched.
Several Headless Monks now poured into the room, and I incinerated them with a single blast of energy from my hands. I would later regret all of this death even if I was protecting Allison from them at the time. At the moment though, I was Sekhmet. Sekhmet was a warrior, and she had no concept of mercy or the sanctity of life. She only carried about one thing. Defeating her enemies.
"Mum, stop! Don't do this! You don't have to kill," Allison pleaded.
I said nothing. In her own way, Sekhmet loves Allison as much as I do but feels no need to comfort her when she's upset. She doesn't have the same emotions that I do. Those were taken out of her by Rassilon.
Queen Xanxia appeared next and began to attack me. She fired a meson blaster at me at full power, but I easily deflected its energy away from me and back at her. She laughed at me as the blast had no effect on her. She stood there in front of me with a smirk on her face as she assumed that since she was a living hologram that my power would have no effect on her.
She was wrong.
I poured forth an entire life cycle's worth of regenerative energy into Xanxia's body, and she began to scream in agony as it began to disrupt her entire body. Xanxia began to blur and shimmer, and then she exploded outwards with all of the colors of the rainbow as her body finally lost cohesion. She disappeared with a burst of blinding light, and then she was no more.
"You're not a Time Lord. What are you?" Kovarian said in terror as she continued to back away from me.
"I am Sekhmet," I said as I began to unleash more energy and set the entire area on fire.
Everything around us began to explode as I cut off all communications between Kovarian and the outside world. Then I melted all exits to the rest of the base as I trapped Kovarian alone inside the communications center with me and Allison.
Kovarian reached for her Vortex Manipulator to escape, but I incinerated it with a blast of energy from my hand. The fact that I didn't incinerate anything more than that might have been because of Allison's plea for mercy earlier. It's the only reason that I can think of why Sekhmet wouldn't have done much worse anyway. Maybe Sekhmet did care about Allison's feelings somewhat after all.
"You won't win even if you do kill me. The Silence will still reign supreme over this world. The Doctor will be left alone in the end. He will be alone and helpless before us. We will stop the Silence from coming no matter what the cost," Kovarian said.
"I don't care about the Silence. You threatened the girl. All threats must be neutralized," I said.
"Do it then. Give me your best shot and quit talking about it," Kovarian challenged.
I powered up my regenerative energy until I was glowing brighter than the sun, and then I moved towards her with no emotion in my eyes.
"You won't do it. You're one of them. They don't kill in cold blood. You won't do it," Kovarian said as if she was trying to convince herself more than she was me.
"I will use any and all means necessary to protect my child," I said in a cold voice.
"Mum, I don't want this. Don't do this," Allison pleaded.
Sekhmet was beyond listening though. I placed my hand on Kovarian's head, and she screamed as raw regenerative energy poured into her body. She fell unconscious to the floor as I continued to pour energy into her.
"Mum! Please!" Allison screamed in fear.
Then I felt the presence of someone else next to me. Cassiopeia appeared out of nowhere and teleported Kovarian away from me and across the room with a gesture.
"Don't do this, Grandmother. This isn't you. You're a kind and gentle person at heart. You're not a murderer," Cassiopeia said.
"Cassiopeia?" I said in confusion.
"Hello, Grandmother," Cassiopeia said with a warm smile.
Sekhmet retreated then, and I regained control. I embraced Cassiopeia tightly as I said, "It's so good to see you again."
"It's good to see you too. You've changed a lot since I was a little girl, but then so have I," Cassiopeia said with a grin.
The room began to start falling apart, and I looked around me in amazement as I began to remember just what Sekhmet had done. The ceiling was caving in on us, and there was no way out.
"We have to go. This place is coming apart at the seams," Cassiopeia said.
I looked for Kovarian and didn't see her anywhere. Where had she gone to so quickly?
"Where?" I asked Cassiopeia who merely shrugged in response.
"She's full of tricks. I learned that a long time ago. Who cares where she is? We've got to get out of here!" Cassiopeia said as she grabbed both my and Allison's hands and teleported us back to where the Brigadier and the TARDIS still waited for us.
"I'm not sure just what you did, but it definitely had results. I heard Kovarian giving out orders just now, and it sounded like she was running for her life. She ordered the Silence to retreat. They're in the middle of leaving right now," the Brigadier said.
"I may have set the entire communications center on fire with her in it," I admitted in an unsure voice.
The Brigadier's eyebrows went up at that, and he looked impressed.
"Thank you, Mrs. Wright! The base is ours again. We can always repair a little bit of damage," the Brigadier said happily.
Cassiopeia, Allison, and I looked at each other as we realized that he still had no idea what had just happened. He was probably not going to like it too much when he did. Luckily, I'd be far away by then though.
"I'm sorry, Ally. I'm sorry that I scared you," I said to Allison.
"I'm just glad that Cassiopeia stopped you. I forgive you, Mum. I know that you couldn't help it," Allison said as she gave me a comforting hug.
"You must be my aunt Allison. Mum told me about you. It's nice to meet you," Cassiopeia said.
Allison surprised me then as she said, "Don't believe everything that you hear. I'm much crazier in person. Just like Mum. I'd have to be to do what I just did."
"You see? Being crazy isn't so bad. It's like a badge of honor," I said.
Then I became serious as I said, "Thank you, Cassiopeia. Thank you for stopping me."
"Anytime, Grandmother. I'd have to answer to Mum if I let anything happen to you after all. I'd rather not have to face that thank you very much. I'd take Sekhmet any day over that," Cassiopeia said.
We started to leave before the Brigadier found out what happened when he called out to me, "Mrs. Wright, I've just heard what happened to the communications center."
I tensed up as I said, "I'm sorry, Brigadier. I'll try to pay for the damages somehow."
He actually smiled at me as he said, "Don't worry a bit about it, Mrs. Wright. You actually did quite well. The rest of the base is still in one piece. That's much better than the Doctor's track record most of the time. Do you know I once lost an entire base in another universe once thanks to him? I got it back of course, but that's beside the point. That man had a talent for destruction that you wouldn't believe," the Brigadier said.
"Oh, I'd believe it alright. I'd love to hear about it sometime too. What do you say you and I get together, and you can tell me all about what the Doctor did when he worked at UNIT? It'll give me plenty of ammunition that I can use against the Doctor in the future," I said with an evil smile on my face.
What can I say? I love making fun of the Doctor every chance that I get. It's become almost like an art form to me.
"Oh, I can tell you stories, Mrs. Wright. Such stories!" the Brigadier said with a smile.
"Brigadier, I have a feeling this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship," I said.
Just then I received a phone call from Rose on the cell phone that she gave me. I never use the things, but she wanted me to have one during this whole mess in order to stay in touch with me better.
"Mum, I need you to come and help the Bad Wolves and Oswin. Kovarian's got some final plan that she's going to try to wipe out all of the opposition. We've all got to come together to stop her. This is it. We're finally going to kick her off of this planet once and for all," Rose said.
"Gladly. I look forward to it. I've had more than enough of her. It's time that she learned that no one messes with the Earth because it is defended," I said.
"Mum, you're starting to sound like the Doctor," Rose said.
"Oh, no! He's possessed me too. I'm going to have to get myself exorcised now. I'm just wondering if anything is strong enough to drive that man's unholy presence out of my mind!" I said with a chuckle.
As both of my girls and my newly found granddaughter laughed together at my little joke, I smiled in contentment. I felt so at peace with myself in that moment that I almost felt kindly toward the Doctor. Almost.
Next for Silence Falls Over the Earth: Part 4 to this storyline is in Bad Wolves Chapter 37 as the fate of the Earth depends on the Bad Wolves working together with Lily, Oswin, Rose, and the Doctor to finally drive the Silence off of the planet once and for all. Will Kovarian win in the end after all when she unleashes her final plot against the human race?
Next for this title: Lily and the Brigadier meet at UNIT HQ to swap stories about the Doctor but wind up getting into trouble instead. What else did you expect to happen?