CHAPTER 82

I do not own Doctor Who and I am making no profit off of this.

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THE FACE OF THE MATRIARCH

Even as we ran for our lives from every Zygon on the planet while they did their very best to kill us, my brain was already coming up with a way out of this mess. Not that my family appreciated it.

"Mum, please tell me that you have a plan," Allison said.

"Your mother always has a plan, Allison. I'm sure that she'll finish thinking one up any time now," Robin said.

"Very funny, Robbie. Since when did you develop a sense of humor anyway? You're usually my straight man while I tell all of the one-liners. I'll have you know that I already have a plan, and it's an amazing one," I said in an irritated voice.

"I just hope that it works," I added in a low voice.

"I'm sorry? What was that?" Allison asked.

"Nothing," I said with a grin.

"Right. You really know how to inspire me with confidence, Mum," Allison said with a groan.

"It's going to be fine. Have I ever let you down before?" I asked.

As she started to open her mouth, I said, "Don't answer that. Just have faith in me."

"I always have faith in you, Mum," Allison said with a warm smile.

"We all do. It's just your crazy plans that we're never quite sure about," Ron quickly added.

"Everybody's a comedian today it seems. Well, I'm about to shut all of you up right now. Behold my brilliance!" I said.

Suddenly I stopped running and turned around to face the oncoming Zygons.

"Mum? What are you doing?" Aishwana asked in a surprised voice.

"Saving our lives, Aishy. It's time to see if I'm as hypnotic as those Sontaran monitors are," I said.

Then I drew upon an ability of mine that I never use for two reasons. One of them is because I don't like to invade the minds of others. In this case though, I was willing to make an exception because this situation has just gotten as bad as it could possibly get. I needed to stop it in its tracks right now before the Zygons were completely wiped out.

I closed my eyes as I reached out to every Zygon on the planet and connected with all of their minds at once. I could feel my mind starting to buckle already under the strain of trying to do so much, but I pushed past the pain in order to give them all a single command.

"Stop!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.

Every Zygon on the planet suddenly froze in their tracks as my family looked at me in shock. I had never told any of them that I could do this not even Robin. Only Ivy and Violet weren't surprised because both of them knew me better than anyone due to the fact that Violet was me and Ivy knew my every secret since she had been both my best friend and my worst enemy.

"How are you doing this?" Allison said in disbelief.

"Don't distract her. This is going to be hard enough on her already," Ivy warned.

"Now I see where Koschei gets his hypnotic power from," Allison observed in a low voice.

I tried my best to block both of them out of my thoughts as I poured every bit of willpower that I had into one more command to all of the Zygons. I already knew that I was going to pay for this big time once I was finished.

"From now on you will no longer see the monitors, and you will forget everything that you've ever seen on them. You're all going to fall instantly asleep, and then wake up in a few hours feeling happier than you ever have before in your lives. Then you're going to give everyone that you see a great big hug. That should improve relations between you," I said.

Then I promptly collapsed to the ground in a barely conscious state. That was the second reason why I never used this particular power of mine by the way. It always made me sick as a dog afterwards. No, actually that comparison doesn't do it justice. It made being sick as a dog look like hay fever in comparison, and I had just used it at a higher level than I ever had in my life before.

This was really going to be bad.

I didn't have time to worry about that now though. At the moment, I was more focused on trying to stay awake so that I could confront the Sontarans when they inevitably showed up to stop me in the next minute. It's always good to be awake when someone's trying to kill you after all. It greatly increases your chances at survival or so I've heard.

The Sontarans definitely didn't disappoint either. They appeared on the scene in no time as Stryfe glared in anger at us.

"I don't know how you accomplished that, but you won't live long enough to do it again. You will pay for daring to delay our final victory against the Rutan scum by interfering in our test program," Stryfe said.

"It looks like she may already be paying for it, sir. She appears to be about to die before we even get a chance to kill her. I'm disappointed that she should do such a thing before we could claim her head for the honor of Sontar. How inconsiderate!" One of the Sontarans said.

"Do you know a fellow by the name of Strax? You could be his twin," I said in a weak voice.

"Uh, Sontarans are all clones so yeah he kind of is his twin, Mum," Aishwana said as she looked at me with a worried look on her face.

"Do not compare me to that . . . nurse! He is living with the humans now. He has no honor. He is not a true Sontaran," The Sontaran who had just complained about my lack of proper death etiquette said.

"To me that's a good thing," I said even as I winced as a massive headache tore through my skull.

"Mum, what did you do to yourself?" Allison asked.

"Later, Ally. We have to survive the Sontarans first," I said.

"You don't look like you're going to survive the next few moments let alone the might of Sontar, Once Mighty Sekhmet," Stryfe said with mocking laughter.

"What is this? Is this Universal Comedy Try-Out Day or something? Everyone just keeps making with the jokes," I said even as I winced and gritted my teeth together in pain.

"Look at her. She can't even finish a sentence without almost screaming. What a pitiful mess that you've become," Stryfe said.

"That's okay. I can still beat all of you. I could beat you if I was on my death bed, and the way I feel that might not be far off," I said.

"Don't talk like that," Ron said.

"Don't worry. She's been through this before. She'll be fine after she goes through a week of feeling like she wants to die first. That's always assuming of course that the Sontarans don't put her out of her misery before then," Violet said.

"You always put such cheerful thoughts in my mind, Vi," I said with a groan.

"To kill her now would seem almost cowardly," A Sontaran said.

"She must die regardless. She cannot be left alive to stand in our way any longer. Kill her and the others right now. That is an order," Stryfe said.

"You can certainly try," Robin said as he aimed an arrow at them.

The Sontarans now started laughing as Stryfe said, "Do you really think that you can defeat us with simple arrows?"

"Oh, I definitely do. Let me show you how," Robin said as he fired several arrows at once that bounced off of the force fields around the nearby monitors and then hit several of the Sontarans straight in the probic vents on the back of their necks causing them to instantly keel over.

Then the Sontarans finally stopped laughing.

Robin continued to take down several Sontarans at once as he fired his arrows at them at lightning speed even as they started to fire their guns at him. Luckily for me, Robin is able to both fire an arrow and dodge an attack at the same time thanks to his glory days back in the Land of Fiction.

Ivy now joined Robin in the attack as she pulled out a sword and began to fighting the Sontarans with it. She actually used the specially designed hardened metal of the blade to deflect the Sontarans' blasts right back at them even as she quickly tore through the Sontarans while handing them back a hefty dose of their own medicine.

Violet fought the Sontarans just as I would have done if I was still able to walk by using her regenerative energy to take down the Sontarans surrounding her left and right. I smiled as I watched her in action as I could see that she was using their own fighting techniques that she had learned at the hands of a much friendlier Sontaran commander that she trained under once against them as she anticipated each and every move that they made before they even made it.

As for me, luckily I had Allison to watch out for me as she pulled a mobile force field projector that she had cobbled together in her spare time out of one of her pockets. She quickly activated it and used it to protect me from the Sontarans' attacks even as she, Aishwana, and Ron went off to help the others fight with them.

I hated being so helpless but there was little that I could do about it after using my power the way that I had. That's why you'll never see me using that particular power again. It's definitely not a good thing to be totally incapacitated while blasters are firing all around you.

It's also not a good idea when you find yourself all alone with a mysterious enemy that you didn't even know existed either.

A woman that I had never seen before who was dressed all in black and wearing a metal mask suddenly appeared and quickly walked towards me. She seemed to be completely unconcerned with the chaos going on all around us as she stopped in front of my force field and stood there watching me.

"I suppose you're the one behind all of this, aren't you? I thought the hypnotic technology of those monitors was too clever for the Sontarans to have come up with on their own. They had to have made it at the direction of someone much smarter than they are," I said.

"You're absolutely correct, Psycho Granny. My partner and I gave them that technology so that they could use it first to defeat the Zygons and then the Rutans. I never much cared for the Zygons so I especially wanted to see them burn. You just had to play hero and go and ruin it didn't you?" The woman said.

"Psycho Granny? Who are you?" I asked indignantly.

"I'm someone who you never ever want to cross, Sekhmet, and you've just made the mistake of making me very, very angry. If I didn't have a certain fondness for you, I would have already killed you. In fact, maybe I still should. It would be so easy to do so since no one is watching you right now. Your death would be blamed on the Sontarans, and no one would even know that I was here," The woman said.

"Who are you? If I'm going to die, I should at least know by who and why? What have you got against me or the Zygons for that matter? Why did you help the Sontarans do this to them?" I asked.

"You're awful pushy for someone in your position, Lily. And they call me a control freak! Alright, I'll play along with you because I want you and the others to know what it is that you're going up against soon. I call myself the Matriarch. I thought that it was a fitting name in a way since I always loved children so much. As for why I wanted to do this, it was to show the Sontarans just what my technology could do against the Rutans so that they would use it against them next. That and some Zygons tried to kill me once. Always carry a grudge I say. As for what I have against you, absolutely nothing. That's why I won't kill you," The Matriarch said.

"Come off it. You don't have any good will towards me. You're not capable of it especially if you can do something as horrible as this. The force field is what prevents you from getting to me. If it wasn't here, I'm sure I'd already be dead," I said.

"Do you really think so?" The Matriarch asked with an evil smile.

She then walked toward the force field with an almost chipper attitude and proceeded to go straight through the force field as if it wasn't even there! She came right up to me as I tried in vain to sit up and defend myself.

"No, don't struggle. I told you that I won't kill you," The Matriarch said in a surprisingly gentle voice for someone who was willing to commit murder on such a massive scale.

Then she reached out and gently pulled my nose like a child as she chuckled in amusement while she said, "I just did this to prove a point. I could kill you but I won't. I'm going to show you mercy this time, but next time you may not be so lucky. Be sure and tell the rest of your family that so that they'll stay out of my way in the future."

"Why show me mercy and not the Zygons or the Rutans?" I asked.

"For old time's sake. Let's just say that in some ways that I'm as soft as some of the ingredients that I use to cook with. I'm a very good cook if I do say so myself," the Matriarch babbled.

"Who are you really?" I asked as I realized that she was trying to give me one clue after another about herself that I still hadn't figured out yet.

"You'll find out soon, Lily. For now though, I want you to remember that I could have killed you right here and now but I didn't. Remember that and stay out of my way in the future," The Matriarch said in a tone that seemed almost as if she were begging me not to fight with her.

"Get away from her!" Allison suddenly screamed as she deactivated the force field surrounding me with a remote control device.

"Allison, no!" I warned as I didn't know if the Matriarch would feel the same way about killing her as she did about me.

"Oh, look who finally realized that I was here! It's Useless Girl! Still trying to prove yourself, Ally? I would too if I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Come on and fight me then if you think you can," The Matriarch said as she began to glow with a silver aura composed of what I instinctively knew from being around Rose so much was Vortex energy.

"Ally, run!" I shouted with all of the strength that I had left.

"Yes, Ally. Go before I turn you into atoms," The Matriarch said with mocking laughter.

"Not a chance," Allison said.

"Then I'm afraid that Lily is about to have one less child to worry about from now on," The Matriarch said.

Instead of being afraid though, Allison only smiled as she said, "My sister is a Vortex user. Do you really think that I didn't study how her power works? Or when it doesn't work?"

She pulled a gun out of her pocket in the blink of an eye and before the Matriarch could make a move to stop her she shot her at point blank range with it. The Matriarch then screamed in a combination of pain and surprise as her aura and presumably her powers too suddenly faded away at once.

"A Vortex Neutralizer. I never leave home without it. Rose insisted on it in case she ever goes dark," Allison said with a mischievous smile.

"Rose isn't the one that we have to worry about," I said.

"You've temporarily taken my powers away but I'm hardly helpless," The Matriarch said as she suddenly knocked Allison out with a single move.

"Good thing I studied the martial arts all those years," The Matriarch said with a chuckle.

"You get away from them. I know all about you and how you want to wipe out the Zygons, the Rutans, and the Daleks. She's mad, Lily. She actually thinks that she and the Sontarans can defeat Oswin," Holly said as she finally managed to find the Matriarch at last.

"So it seems that you're up to a lot more than you were letting on. The Daleks, eh? I bet if that did work out for you somehow, which I doubt, that the Sontarans would follow the Daleks into oblivion soon afterwards, right? You're another one of those take over the universe types aren't you? Here I was hoping that you would be so much more interesting," I said just before I screamed in pain from a massive headache.

"Don't get yourself too excited, dear. It only makes the headaches worse," The Matriarch said with a giggle.

"Go ahead and laugh. Let's see if you're still laughing when I tear you apart," Holly said as she morphed into a lion.

"Holly, stop," I said.

"Oh, don't worry about me, Lily. I can take care of myself," The Matriarch said as she pulled a sonic screwdriver out of her pocket.

I watched her in surprise as she used the sonic to bombard Holly with a wave of ear shattering noise that completely disrupted her concentration. Holly immediately became a puddle on the ground again as her body dissolved without her will holding it together.

I glared at her as she said, "Oh, cool it! She'll be fine. She'll pull herself together in no time. You know I really would dump that one, Lily. She just completely falls apart in a crisis. Oh, that was a bad pun! That was more like something my partner would say. I'll have to be careful of that. He's rubbing off on me."

Luckily at that moment, the Sontarans who hadn't already been taken down by my family suddenly beat a hasty retreat. They had finally decided to give up and just in time too because I didn't want to have to watch anyone else get defeated by the Matriarch while I could only stand by helpless and unable to do anything about it.

"Well, well. I guess you win after all, Sekh. I definitely can't stop you in this state so I suppose I'll just have to follow the Potato Heads' lead and retreat. This isn't the last that you'll see of me though. You can count on it," The Matriarch said as she activated what I recognized as a teleportation device and quickly left.

"Who was that?" Robin asked in concern as he made sure that Allison was alright.

"I don't know but I have my suspicions," I said as I started putting all of the clues that she had left me together in my mind.

I definitely didn't like what I came up with, and I hoped so much that I was wrong.

"Holly!" A newly awakened Skaren shouted as he saw her back in her puddle form once more.

"You're awake? It's too early though. That wasn't supposed to happen for hours," I asked in surprise.

"Who cares about that? What about Holly?" Skaren asked in an upset voice.

"Stop fussing over me already. I'm fine," Holly said in a grouchy voice as she started pulling herself together again.

As soon as she did, Skaren hugged her and refused to let her go.

"Hey, stop it! I'm definitely not in the mood after what I just went through," Holly protested.

"I don't think he can stop thanks to Mum. Look," Aishwana said with a grin as she pointed around us to all of the Zygons who were either hugging each other or the remaining Sontarans.

"This is an embarrassment! Give me an honorable death! Anything but this!" Stryfe shouted in anger as one of the Zygons kept hugging him and refused to let go.

"That's the real reason why the rest of the Sontarans ran. They were afraid of winding up like Stryfe," Ron said laughing.

"My power must have been too strained to make them sleep for hours so it wore off after a few minutes instead. I guess that's a good thing though," I said.

"Speak for yourself. For once I agree with the Sontarans. Get off of me, Skaren!" Holly shouted.

I noticed that she was smiling though despite her protests. I think that he was actually making her feel better about being turned into a puddle again the longer that he held on.

"Make sure that Stryfe doesn't get away. We need to pick his brain to see if he can help us cure the Zygons and Holly," I said.

"Well, at least they stopped fighting anyway. Now if we can only pry them apart from each other for five seconds, they might get back to normal again," Ivy said.

"I wish I could say that. My headache is only getting worse. One of you is going to have to take over helping the Zygons from here. I have a feeling that I'm going to be out of commission for a while," I said as I lay down on my back and started gently rubbing my throbbing skull.

Other than my massive sickening headache though, we had actually had a good day. We had saved the Zygons and the Rutans and hopefully even found the Zygons a cure.

The only thing that we hadn't done was stop the Matriarch. I had a feeling that I was going to regret that very soon now especially if I was right about who she was.

Violet finally brought the TARDIS back to find Freya and Richard asleep in the Captain's Chair with their heads on each other's shoulders. Isabella smiled in triumph while the rest of us looked at her with newfound respect.

"You actually got Freya to forgive Richard? You're good," A newly awakened Allison said appreciatively.

"I guess you could call it a trial run for when I have my own child. I wasn't sure that I'd be able to handle motherhood at first, but now I think I'll do just fine at it," Isabella said confidently.

"I never had any doubts about that," Ron said as he gave her a tender kiss.

Even as we celebrated our victory over the Sontarans, the Matriarch reappeared back on Earth and smiled as she took off her mask. As she looked in the mirror at a face that looked just like Clara Oswald's, she began to laugh.

I would later find out all about this and realize that my guess was exactly right. I still didn't understand what her connection to Clara was just yet (and I refused to believe for a minute that it was really her), but we all would find out the truth very soon now.

I definitely hadn't seen the last of the Matriarch and neither had my family. This was only the beginning for all of us.

Next: After Robot of Sherwood aired, you just know that I had to do something based on it in this story. Next time Robin Hood meets Robin Hood and neither one of them is too pleased by it! Plus Lily deals with the after effects of what she did to herself and the others try to extract the secrets of how to fix the Zygons from Stryfe. Will they succeed? Will they finally be able to return the Zygons and Holly back to normal?

By the way, I was going to call this chapter Sontarans Hate Hugs but I decided against it. You decide if I made the right call or not.