CHAPTER 62

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THE STORY OF AISHWANA

As Allison, Holly, and I entered the mini Matrix, I could already tell that both of them were nervous about being in there from the start. I shook my head at them as I said, "I'm telling you that we're perfectly safe in here. She's a very nice person. She'd never hurt anyone."

"You haven't seen her in how many centuries, Mum? People change," Allison said.

"Well, that's nice. I see that I already have a fan club starting up. It looks like you're already going to be the President of it," Aishwana's voice said. Her voice seemed to reverberate everywhere around us.

I could see Holly tense up beside me, and I said in a reassuring voice, "It's okay. She's not dangerous."

"Why do your two friends look so terrified of me for, Mum? Are you just hanging around with a less courageous crowd these days than you used to or what?" Aishwana said in an annoyed voice.

"Maybe if you'd quit talking to us as an eerie disembodied voice and showed yourself to us it would help," I suggested.

"Aw! I like sounding like this. It makes me sound cool. Alright, I'm coming. Try not to wet yourselves when I appear, girls," Aishwana said.

"She's your daughter alright," Holly said as she started to laugh.

I smiled at her as I knew that Holly was finally starting to become relaxed. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"She's just as cheeky and insane as you are," Holly said.

"I resent that remark. I am in no way cheeky or insane, and I'm her daughter too," Allison said with a chuckle.

"Not yet you aren't. You will be though. I'm slowly corrupting you. I'm burrowing my way into your brain more and more until one day you'll wake up, and you'll be Crazy Ally!" I said with a huge smile.

"Oh, the horror! The horror!" Allison joked. I was so glad to see that she was relaxing now too.

Aishwana suddenly appeared in front of us with an extremely happy look on her face. The sarcastic wit was gone for the moment, and she was just standing there filled with pure joy. She looked just as she did in my memories of her with long auburn colored hair, huge almond colored eyes, and a perpetual smile on her face. She was basically a nicer, saner version of me but not by much.

"Aishwana, are you alright?" I asked her.

"I am now. I was there for so long that I've lost track of how many years that it's been. I never thought that I'd see you again," Aishwana said as she tried not to cry.

"I'm so sorry. If I had known, I would have freed you a long time ago," I said in a choked up voice.

"I know you would have. I'm not blaming you in any way, Mum. I did this all to myself. I'm the only one to blame for it not you. Of course if I hadn't trapped myself in the mirrors then I'd have been dead a long time ago. I wouldn't even be a memory now. I'd just be long forgotten," Aishwana said.

"I never forgot you. I've thought about you every day of my life," I admitted with undisguised pain in my voice.

Aishwana smiled at me as she said, "Same here. I never thought that I'd see this day again. I thought that I would have to stay content with just memories of who I used to be back when I still had a life. I actually gave up you know. I never thought that I would but I did. A long, long time ago. I still can't believe that I'm actually talking to you. I like the current look by the way. You look very nice. I can tell that you're still just as crazy as ever though, and I wouldn't have you any other way."

I walked toward her even as she said this and hugged her tightly. I refused to let go even as she tried to pull away from me.

"You're embarrassing me, Mum. Stop it," Aishwana protested.

"Never," I said feeling happier than I had in a very long time.

"Just let her hug you for a while and zip it, okay?" Allison said.

"Well, I take it from the bossy attitude that you're probably related to both of us somehow," Aishwana said even as I refused to let her go.

"I'm your sister, Allison. Your older sister since I was the first born," Allison said with special emphasis placed on the words 'older sister'.

"It's nice to meet you, Ally. Just because you're older though doesn't mean that I'm going to let you boss me around. Don't do it again. Only Mum can tell me what to do and not even her sometimes," Aishwana said.

"I thought you said she was very nice," Holly said to me.

"I am very nice. I just don't let anyone push me around. I'm very independent," Aishwana said proudly.

"You're stubborn and foolish. That's what you are. I wouldn't have you any other way either though. I'm so glad that you're here. I just wish that we could meet out in the real world. That's my only regret about this whole thing," I said with a permanent smile on my face.

"Maybe I can get a new body somehow. I'll have to see if I can work on moving my consciousness into a robotic body. I'm not sure if that would work or not, but I could try if you have one available," Aishwana suggested.

"Not really but maybe I could find one. Right now though I want to know how you got here. What happened to you that day?" I asked as I became filled with burning curiosity.

"This is all a result of my experiments on mirrors. I discovered a long time ago that there is another dimension that connects all of the mirrored surfaces in our universe. If you know how to do it, you can move someone or something in or out of this dimension and back again," Aishwana started to explain.

"The other Time Lords discovered the same thing that you did, but they didn't do it until long afterwards. It shows just how far ahead of your time that you really were," I said to her with pride in my voice.

She smiled at my approval as she said, "I found out how to put my consciousness into this mirror world using small amounts of my regenerative energy as a carrier wave to send my mind in and out of it at will while my body stood nearby glowing with power but not enough to actually regenerate as it waited for me to come back. It's a specialized process that I spent long hours mastering until I could do it in the blink of an eye. I used to spend so much time going from one mirror to another and looking out on other worlds, times, and places through the mirrors in them. I even visited those other places by coming out of the mirrors there. No one could see me unless they were psychic so I just roamed around everywhere invisibly. It was a lot of fun. At least it was as long as I had a body to go back to at the end of the day. It was not so much when it was all that I could do though. Then it was a different story."

"That's astral projection. You actually astral projected yourself to other times and places through mirrors? That's amazing!" Allison said with newfound respect for her younger sister in her voice.

"Why didn't you ever tell me about this?" I asked as I stared at her in shock.

"I knew that you would worry about me. That's why. If you found out about it, you'd tell me that it was too dangerous and forbid me from doing it anymore. So I kept it from you which turned out to be a huge mistake. If you had known about it maybe I could have been rescued a long time ago," Aishwana said with a huge amount of regret in her voice.

"So when you were dying you used this power of yours to save your mind even though you couldn't save your body. How did you get into the mirrors though inside of that prison that you created for Alator?" I asked.

"I brought a small pocket mirror with me. It was my way out. I was hoping that maybe I could save my mind and then reunite with you again. Unfortunately, I never found you again because you just disappeared immediately afterwards, and I couldn't locate you again until you came back. I didn't know where Gallifrey was since you never took me there so I could never find you or the other Time Lords in order to get help for myself. I spent so long searching for you with nothing to show for it. I searched for centuries until I finally just gave up. I decided just to travel around for fun in the hope that I might stumble across you one day by accident, but I never did. Then you finally came and I hopped into your TARDIS' mirrors in the hope that I could get you to understand that you needed to use some of your regenerative energy around me in order to free me. As soon as you did, I rode your energy out of the mirror and straight into your body. It was so simple once I had you near me. I just wish that I could have done it a long time ago," Aishwana said in an extremely sad voice.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I didn't know. I left right away because I didn't want to stay there anymore after I lost you. It hurt too much to be there at that point because everything that I looked at just reminded me of what I had lost," I said in a heartbroken voice as I thought about those days immediately after Aishwana's death again, and the pain of them automatically came rushing back to me.

"I don't blame you. I already said that. I blame myself for never telling you about what I could do. I was so stupid," Aishwana said in a disgusted voice.

"It doesn't matter. You're here with me now, and I'll find a way to give you a body again somehow. I promise you that," I said.

"It's too bad that you can't just clone my old body. I'd definitely prefer that over an android one, but having any kind of body would be better than not having one at all. Trust me on that," Aishwana said.

I began to smile as something that I had been thinking since I had found her immediately sprang to mind. I had a way to help her. At least I hoped that I did.

"What's on your mind, Mum? I know that you're up to something. You have that sneaky look on your face that you always have when you're plotting to do crazy things that no one else would even attempt to do," Allison said.

"I have a piece of Aishwana's hair that I've saved all of these years," I said with a twinkle in my eye.

"Really? Do you think that it might actually work?" Aishwana asked hopefully.

"I hope so if the DNA in the hair hasn't degraded too much. It's worth a try, isn't it?" I asked.

"It certainly is. Let's do it," Aishwana said as she grinned with anticipation.

"What are you talking about?" Holly asked with a completely lost expression on her face.

I had forgotten that she was from the late nineteenth century and had no idea what cloning was. I quickly explained to her how you could use the hair's DNA to clone a new body if the DNA was still intact enough to do so and hadn't deteriorated too much after the thousands upon thousands of years that I'd had it.

"I think that I understand that. You can use the one piece of her that you still have left to recreate her. It sounds so fantastic that it seems more like magic than science to me. Then again I've always thought that you were just a good witch in disguise," Holly said with a warm smile.

"A witch, eh? I guess that's not so bad. I've been called worse. Usually it's a word that just rhymes with witch," I said with a wicked grin on my face.

"I'll just stay here then until you're ready to get me out," Aishwana said.

"No," I said firmly.

"What do you mean? Where else would I go?" Aishwana asked.

"Into my body. I don't want you to be trapped somewhere ever again. You've done that for long enough," I said.

"No. I'm not going to do that," Aishwana said stubbornly.

"I'm not leaving you in here alone. I won't do it," I said.

"No and that's final," Aishwana said defiantly.

"You can use my body. I'll just stay here until you can get your own," Holly suddenly said.

"No!" Both Aishwana and I said firmly at the same time.

"I want to do it. If it wasn't for your mother, I wouldn't even exist. I'd have been dead a long time ago. This is the least that I can do for her," Holly said.

"No, Holly. You'll be in here all alone then. I won't do that to you. I can't," I said.

"I won't do it either. I don't even know your name so how can I possibly ask you to do something like that for me?" Aishwana said.

"It's Holly and I want this. Do it. Spend some time with your mum. I know that you want to," Holly said.

"You don't know what you're letting yourself in for. You'll be in here for what will seem like an eternity. It'll be just you all alone and trapped with only your thoughts to keep you entertained forever. It'll drive you insane, Holly. I can't do that. I won't. I know what that's like, and I won't do it to another living being," Aishwana said.

"Please! I want your mother to have this time with you. Then when you get your own body you can put me back," Holly said.

"Okay. I won't leave you here forever though. I promise," Aishwana said as she embraced Holly and thanked her.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked Holly.

"Yes. Now go, Lily. Do it before I come to my senses," Holly said with a laugh.

Aishwana, Allison, and I went back to the real world as we left Holly behind inside of the mini Matrix; and Aishwana looked out at me through Holly's eyes with enormous guilt written all over her face. I could tell that she felt so badly about this and really had wanted no part in it whatsoever.

"We'll get her out of there soon, sweetie. Don't worry about it," I said as I finally hugged her in person for the first time in so long.

"It does feel good to be able to actually feel something again. It feels wonderful," Aishwana said as she hugged me back.

I could see Allison grinning at the reunion between us for a moment out of the corner of my eye, and then she silently walked away. She wanted to give us some time alone together.

As the two of us began to enjoy our first time alone in so many ages, Holly breathed out a deep sigh as she stood alone inside of the mini Matrix. She had asked for this she knew, but that didn't make the solitude any easier. She had already lost track of time and was starting to become bored within the first fifteen minutes of her arrival there.

"Well, Aishwana did warn me. I can't say that I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I didn't really realize just how bad that it would be. Great! Now I'm talking to myself. That's just wonderful," Holly said with yet another sigh.

"It's not so bad. Talking to yourself I mean. It's when you start answering back. That's when you need to start worrying," a voice suddenly said out of nowhere.

"Who are you? I thought that I was the only one in here," Holly said in sudden alarm.

"That's what I wanted Sekhmet and the others to think. You should feel honored. You're the first one that I've revealed my presence to since I've been in here. I never told Goth or Aishwana that I was here," the voice said.

"I'm so lucky then. Why is that?" Holly said nervously.

"Because I thought that I owed it to you for what's about to happen to you next," the voice said.

"W-w-what do you mean?" Holly said as she began to stammer with fear.

"You and I are about to join together. We will become one, Holly Samuels, and then when they retrieve you to place you back into your body I will go back with you. I will have a body that's all my own once again, and since we will be one you won't be fighting against me. I will finally be free at last," the voice said.

"No! Please. Don't do this to me," Holly pleaded.

"Don't worry. I won't destroy you. The essence of who you are will be preserved. It will just be shuffled to the back of our shared consciousness. Maybe one day after I leave your body for a better one which I will inevitably do, I'll even put you back in control of it once more. If I haven't already forgotten about you already by then that is. I do tend to have a really bad short term memory after all," the voice said with mocking laughter.

"Please don't. Please," Holly begged as she could feel the presence behind the voice beginning to come closer to her.

"It's already too late, Holly. It was too late the moment that you volunteered to stay in here. From that moment, you doomed yourself to become the new receptacle of the greatest mind in Time Lord history. You will become the new body of Omega!" Omega shouted with malicious glee.

Then the two minds began to merge into one as Holly screamed for a help that never came.

Next: Lily tries to find a way to clone Aishwana's body even as Omega silently waits for his opportunity to gain a new body at last. Also, Jenny starts her first day on the job. How will she do? Will it be all that she thought it would be?