CHAPTER 80

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THE PRICE OF BEING LILY

Everything seemed to blur together in that moment just before Kovarian's beam hit me. It was almost as if it was happening to somebody else as I felt myself being pushed aside just before the beam hit me. Then I heard someone hit the ground behind me while I was trying to get back to my feet.

"No!" Skaren screamed and then I finally knew without a doubt exactly who it had been.

I turned to see Holly lying there on the ground and realized with a sick feeling in my stomach that her body was beginning to dissolve and turn into a puddle.

Kovarian looked at the scene before her with no compassion or sorrow whatsoever in her eyes as she said with a smirk, "Huh! I never anticipated that reaction to the ray by a non-metamorphic species. I'll have to make a note of that for the future. It could make for a formidable new weapon for our arsenal if harnessed properly."

"Holly. My sweet Holly," Skaren said in tears as what was left of her continued to dissolve right in front of him.

I rose to my feet and began to glow all over with regenerative energy as both of my hearts filled with absolute hatred for this demon in human form. Kovarian was easily one of the worst people that I had ever met in my life. She didn't have one ounce of emotion in that thing in her chest that passed for a heart.

The Silents all gathered around me with their fingertips glowing with electricity and began to attack me all at once. I easily deflected their attacks with my regenerative energy though as it formed a temporary protective shield around me.

"Electricity? Come on, boys. Surely you can all do better than that! Let me show you how a real warrior fights," I said in a hard voice.

I instantly defeated all of the Silents around me with one enormous burst of energy that knocked them all out cold even before they hit the ground.

Kovarian was standing against me all alone now as she pointed her gun at me once more and said, "Don't worry so much about the girl, Sekhmet. I'm sure that she'll be there to guide you through the afterlife if such a thing really exists. I have no memories of it myself from my own brief visit to the great beyond."

"I can certainly see why. If I went where I'm sure you did, I wouldn't want to remember it either. Maybe I'll reacquaint you with the place though. Very soon," I said in an emotionless voice.

"You don't scare me, Time Lord. You're nothing more than an archaic throwback who has long since overstayed her welcome. I'm only restoring the natural order of things by killing you since you were supposed to have died a long, long time ago," Kovarian said.

"This coming from the person who's been brought back from the dead," I said as I slowly moved closer and closer to her.

"Touche," Kovarian said with an evil smile.

Then she began to laugh as she said, "You should have finished me when you had the chance instead of engaging me in pointless small talk. My gun needed a moment to recharge before it could fire again. Now it's too late because it's ready to shoot once more. You've just signed your own death warrant by waiting so long to strike."

I gave her a grim smile as I said, "No, you did when you killed my friend. It's a real shame that your return to life was so short. It seems that the Silents were just wasting their time bringing you back after all."

Then I began to attack her with a massive burst of regenerative energy that immediately incinerated her gun before she could fire it and didn't do any wonders for her either. She screamed in agony as I made sure that my attack against her was as painful as possible.

Even as I forced Kovarian to her knees, Allison held out a small handheld medical scanner over the puddle that used to be a human being and suddenly gasped in surprise. She immediately checked the readings on the device again and smiled when she realized that they were the same.

"Why are you smiling? Holly just died horribly," Jenny asked her in an angry voice.

Vastra shook her head as she said, "No, dear. I think that something else happened entirely judging from Allison's expression."

"But she's goo," Jenny protested.

"Is she? Tell us what you found, Allison," Vastra said.

"She's still alive somehow according to this. I think that I'm using it right. It's still so weird to me to actually know how this stuff actually works much less to be using it. Once I was just an ordinary person or at least I thought I was and didn't know a thing about Time Lord technology. Now I've mastered it in almost no time ever since I became a Time Lord myself. It's just . . . weird," Allison said in disbelief.

"She's alive?" Skaren said with renewed hope in his eyes.

"Yes, but her body's been torn apart so I'm sure that she's not in good shape right now. We have to find a way to get her back together. I have no idea how though unless . . ." Allison said before stopping as her eyes widened as a sudden realization hit her out of the blue.

"Kovarian's ray causes shape shifters to become stuck, right? Well, what if it has the opposite effect to regular people and makes them into shape shifters?" Allison said.

Skaren's smiled as he realized what was happening now and said, "Young Zygons can often get distracted while changing forms and wind up as some shapeless entity because they're too young to use their powers properly. Sometimes the older Zygons have to help them return to normal. I'll try to guide her through it."

He immediately looked at the puddle that used to be his wife and said, "Holly, it's me. Can you hear me? If you can, you're going to be okay. You just need to concentrate on your original form. Remember what you normally look like. Just keep picturing it in your head and don't let it go."

To everyone's surprise, the puddle started to shake and shimmer. Allison smiled as she saw it begin to slowly come together and form a rudimentary body with arms, legs, and a head. Jenny gasped as the body slowly gained recognizable features and started to look more and more like Holly by the moment.

"It's unbelievable," Jenny said.

"I am most impressed. I thought that Holly was just a weak, ordinary human, but now I see that she is a cunning and deadly warrior who was only hiding her true strength. No wonder the Doctor is so obsessed with humans. Their duplicity at hiding their true power can give a warrior a great tactical advantage in combat since everyone underestimates them as being the weakest, most useless race in the universe," Strax said.

"I think I've just been insulted. If I'm still human that is," Holly said as she stood there before them back to her normal self once more and still wearing her original clothing.

"Holly! I'm so glad that I was right. I was so scared," Skaren shouted with joy as he wrapped his arms around her.

"You were scared? Try being the pool of sludge on the floor. I don't even know how I did that little trick with my clothes, but I'm not questioning it because I definitely didn't want to be standing here without them," Holly said as she shook all over while Skaren held her.

"Are you alright?" Allison asked her in concern.

"Yeah, I'm just great," Holly said in an extremely upset voice.

"You're going to be okay. You've just been changed. You've gained the ability to change your form like the Zygons used to have. You're still human though so don't worry about that," Allison said in a gentle voice.

"I don't feel very human right now," Holly said in a shaky voice.

"Is she going to be okay?" Skaren asked as he held the extremely upset Holly close to him and stroked her hair in an attempt to calm her down.

Allison scanned her again and said, "Yes, her body has fully stabilized now. She can stay in human form forever if she wants to and never has to change again. If she wants to though, she can also become just about anything just like the Zygons used to be able to do. Do you know what's really cool, Holly? You can completely control your physical appearance now. You'll be able to keep yourself from ever looking any older, and you won't ever gain any weight no matter how much you eat. How great is that, huh?"

Holly smiled despite her situation as she said, "Stop trying to appeal to my vanity. Well, one thing's for sure, Skaren. Your father should definitely like me even better now. I'm just like you or at least how you used to be anyway."

Then her smile faltered and she started to shake in fear as she said, "I'm so scared."

"It's going to be okay, Holly. It'll be alright. I'll be here with you every step of the way," Skaren said as he kissed her forehead and held her tightly.

"I love you," Holly said as she buried her face in his chest.

"I love you too and I won't let anything happen to you. Do you hear me? You're going to be alright," Skaren reassured her.

All of this was going on while I continued to attack Kovarian without mercy. I could hear what was going on behind me so I knew that Holly wasn't dead but it wasn't from lack of trying on Kovarian's part so I was still furious with her.

Even I wasn't sure what I was going to do next now as I continued to attack her without mercy. Something about this woman always seemed to bring out all of my worst qualities every time that I met her. Maybe it was because she reminded me so much of Rassilon.

As Kovarian's screams started to die out and became more like strangled gasps of pain instead I knew that it was time to stop now. I just wasn't sure that I wanted to.

"Mum, don't. She isn't worth it," Allison said.

"How many people will she hurt if I don't finish her once and for all? Look what she did to Holly," I said in an emotional voice.

"No, don't drag me into this, Lily. You're doing this because you want to not because of me," Holly said as she came into my line of sight.

"Are you alright?" I said as my resolve started to break.

"No, but I think I will be. Don't do this. She's not worth it," Holly pleaded.

"You're right. She's not worth wasting a single moment longer on," I said as I suddenly used one last burst of energy to send her through a nearby wall and instantly knocked her out cold on the spot.

Holly smiled in approval as I said, "I'm sorry. This wouldn't have happened to you if you hadn't pushed me out of the way."

"Oh, is that what your little outburst was about? That was not your fault, Lily. I'd do the exact same thing again without hesitation," Holly said.

I knew that she was telling me the truth when she said that, but I also knew that she was scared to death about what would happen to her next despite Allison's assurances that she was basically okay. Sooner or later everyone that I cared about always wound up getting hurt no matter how hard I tried to keep them safe. That was the price of being me it seemed.

"I'll find a way to return both you and the Zygons back to normal, Holly. I swear it. You shouldn't have to suffer in order to save an old girl like me who should have . . . who should have died a long time ago," I said in a sickened voice.

"Hey! Don't ever say that again! I'm so glad that you didn't. Do you understand? Kovarian wasn't right when she said that. The universe and your family need you. So do I," Holly said.

"You are my family, Holly," I said as I hugged her and thanked her for what she had done at the same time as I apologized to her.

Allison turned away from this with an upset look on her face and was just in time to see Kovarian waking up. She saw Kovarian watching my pain with a smirk on her face and this completely set her off.

"You think it's funny making my mum feel guilty and hurting my friend? Let's see if you think that this is funny," Allison said as she punched Kovarian in the face and knocked her out cold in one hit.

"Don't mess around with Ally," Holly said with a grin as she tried to make me feel better.

Allison then used the ropes that had been used to tie up Vastra, Jenny, and Strax to tie up Kovarian and her Silents instead. We then took them to my TARDIS and put them in the prison area of the ship that the TARDIS had just created for them until we could bring them to Tasha Lem. I'd let her handle them instead of putting them in the revolving door that was Shada these days.

Then I agreed to let Strax blow up the Silents' TARDIS. In hindsight, that was a very, very bad idea. It turns out that our favorite Sontaran used just a little bit too much explosive to destroy it. I'm sure that you're not too surprised by that. Let's just say that I had to leave the area pretty quickly before it exploded, and even then I didn't quite get away fast enough. I still had a horrible ringing noise in my ears for days afterwards.

Ace would have been proud of him I'm sure.

After we said good bye to Vastra, Jenny, and Strax, we headed off in the TARDIS to go straight back to the Zygon home world in an attempt to fix things there before it was too late. While we were on our way there, Allison placed her hands on the sides of Kovarian's head and started to probe her mind while she was still out cold.

After a few minutes of this, Allison eventually sighed as she said, "She doesn't know how to help Holly or the Zygons. She never thought of a way to reverse the effects of the gun because she didn't care what happened to the people that she shot with it. It looks like we're going to have to figure this one out by ourselves, Mum. By the way, I just put her into a deep sleep that she won't be waking up from for at least a few days and in which she'll have plenty of extremely bad dreams about you. That'll teach her to mess with me."

I was impressed with all of this not to mention completely surprised and said, "How did you learn to do that so quickly? I never taught you."

"I taught myself with a little help from Rose and Aishwana. I've really been trying to improve myself so that I can fight right alongside you. I want to be . . . well, not your equal but at least somewhere closer to your level. I just don't want to always be the weakling of the group," Allison said.

Now I finally understood exactly why she was the only other one of our group still standing after the fight with Rassilon. It hadn't registered with me before but now I knew. It was because she had been training herself and becoming more skilled both in fighting and in using her Time Lord abilities.

"I've never thought that you were a weakling," I said.

"I know but I did, and now I don't anymore. Now I'm Sekhmet 2.0 or at least I'm on the way there anyway," Allison said proudly.

I frowned as I said, "I'd rather you find out who Allison is and be her instead. I'm not that great a role model. Just ask Calliope about that or better yet the Doctor."

"I did. They both said the same thing that you just said, but they also said that I couldn't find a better example to live up to," Allison said.

I was surprised by that at first and then smiled as I said, "Well, I never knew that they could lie so well. I mean that one's a whopper even for the Doctor. I still say that I'd rather you be the best Ally that you can be instead though."

Allison smiled and said, "I get the message and I will. You're still my idol though and I don't ever even want to consider what my life would be like without you so you can just get what Kovarian said out of your thick skull right now."

I laughed and said, "I get the message."

"You'd better. You definitely don't want to get on my bad side. Just ask Kovarian. No wait you can't," Allison said laughing.

I smiled for a little while and then my smile fell as I looked at Holly who still looked very upset. For all of the good that I did, it always seemed like I did almost an equal amount of damage if not more.

Holly noticed the look on my face and shook her head as she said, "Stop that. I'll get over this, okay? I have faith in you, Lily. You'll find a way to help us all sooner or later."

"I think it's a little too late to help the Zygons now," Isabella said as she walked into the Console Room holding Freya and Richard's hands.

I noticed that both children were still not talking to one another and that Richard looked very upset about that. He still had no idea what had almost happened to his mother or he really would have had something to be upset over. That only made me feel even worse about what had happened of course. In the future, I was really going to have to be much more careful with the safety of the people that I traveled with.

"What do you mean?" I asked with dread as Skaren sighed because he had already guessed.

"Skaren's father just called and told me to tell him not to come back just yet. He said that it was too dangerous to return home now," Isabella said as she looked at Skaren with sympathy.

"You mean . . . ?" I asked and then stopped not wanting to finish that sentence.

"Yes, the two groups of Zygons have just declared war on each other. There's now a civil war on the Zygon home world," Isabella said in a sad voice.

Next: It's up to Lily and her now fully healed crew to find a way to stop the Zygons from fighting with one another until a cure can be found. Will either side listen to them though? Will any progress towards a cure be made? Plus Holly does her best to cope with her new situation as she realizes that it won't be as easy for her as Allison thought that it would be, and there will be more on the budding relationship between Freya and Richard as someone does their best to get them together but it isn't Lily.