CHAPTER 86

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NIGHTSHADE RISING

As I watched Holly squeezing the life out of Allison, I turned to Nightshade and pleaded, "Bella, if there's anything left in there of the sweet loving girl that I once knew please stop fighting with me until I can save Allison. This is between you and me. She's got nothing to do with it. If you let me help her, I'll let you do whatever you want to me afterwards."

I admit it that I didn't like pleading like that, but I knew that I would never be able to save Allison in time if I had to fight Bella too. I was good but even I couldn't beat both her and Holly in time to save Ally.

Bella was actually her nickname. She started calling herself that after she watched the first movie in a certain popular movie series and instantly idolized one of the characters in it. I have no idea why but she was a huge fan of that series and even read the books that it was based upon. I remember that Rose used to tease her about it and said that the Doctor was a billion times better than the vampire in those movies. This had always made Donald look very uncomfortable every time especially whenever Bella would ask him to prove it by giving her a kiss.

Those two loved to tease poor Donald like that. Not that I cared since I used to join into that teasing. He was another Doctor after all.

Bella's favorite series is one that I never did like one bit by the way because of the way that it romanticized vampires. I've fought vampires in one form or another for over a billion years so you might call me a bit of an expert on them by now. Trust me when I say that they are definitely not in any way romantic.

They also don't sparkle.

Bella's real name was Isabella Tyler and she was the daughter of the Pete Tyler of Pete's World's brother, Robert, which made her Rose's cousin. Well, she was her step-cousin anyway since the Pete of that world wasn't actually her Pete.

That didn't seem to matter to Isabella though. Bella loved Rose dearly from the moment that she first met her and always thought of her as her sister instead of her cousin. The two of them were inseparable and were practically joined at the hip. Everywhere one of them went the other one was always right behind them.

That was until the day that Bella died.

I could still remember that day as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. Bella, Rose, Donald, Mickey, and I were all on the same Torchwood team together with Rose as our leader, and we were desperately trying to save the Earth from a malicious entity that was bent on completely wiping out the entire human race. Bella had become possessed by it and was completely under its control. It was trying to make her wipe out the entire planet, and she was only a few minutes away from doing exactly that when Rose made the hardest choice that she had ever made in her life.

She really hadn't had any other choice. She had tried everything that she could think of to save Bella but nothing had worked. She had completely run out of options and when it came down to the life of Bella versus the life of the entire human race Rose had to do what she had to do in order to save the planet.

Rose didn't see it that way though.

I won't go into the details of what happened here because that's Rose's story to tell not mine. The end result though was that Bella died and the world was saved.

Rose was completely devastated and constantly cried every day for months afterwards. I honestly don't think that she ever really got over it. I know that Bella's the reason why Rose tries so hard to save everyone now. She's trying to make it up to herself somehow for the one time that she failed to save the one person who mattered the most to her.

Now that same person who I had once laughed with, who I had comforted when she was upset, who I had helped take care of once when she was sick, and who I loved and accepted as a member of my own family was back somehow and trying to kill me. Not only that but she absolutely hated Rose. For you to understand just how wrong that that was you had to know that once they would have willingly died for one another and had once talked about naming their future children after each other.

Now though the person that I saw before me was like a twisted nightmarish version of the one who I used to know. This was not the Bella that I knew and yet part of me still held onto the smallest of hopes that some small part of her still survived deep down and would help me one last time.

I was so wrong.

"Do you really think that I want it to be that easy, Lily? I want to see you beaten, broken, and dying before me before I'll even think about granting you any mercy . . . and even then I won't. You don't deserve any mercy. I could care less about saving your precious Allison or any other member of your family. If she's going to die then good! I hope that it's long and painful. That will make Rose suffer even more won't it?" Nightshade, I wouldn't call her Bella anymore after that speech, said in a cold, unfeeling voice.

"What did she do to you?" I said to Nightshade in a horrified voice even as I continued to try to think of a way out of this.

Nightshade looked at me in confusion as she said, "What? Oh, I see. You think because of what happened to your friend Holly that the same thing has happened to me too. You'd really like to believe that Missy made me hate you wouldn't you? That would make it so much easier, wouldn't it? Newsflash, Lily! Missy didn't do anything to my mind. She only brought me back to life in a new and improved body. That's all. This is the real me talking to you, and this is how I really feel now. Rose left me behind to die. She as good as killed me herself. My best friend, my sister, killed me! Do you really think that I'd ever grant you mercy after that?!"

"She had no other choice! She was so upset afterwards that she went into a catatonic state, Bella! She was in it for days. I thought that she would never come out of it. Does that sound like someone who wanted you to die?" I said in an emotional voice.

"She's going to wish that she had never come out of it when I'm through with her," Nightshade said.

That was when I finally made my choice. Something about the way that she had said that made me finally realize that that was no further use in reasoning with her at this point. That's when I finally made my choice. I wasn't going to try to save her anymore. Now I was going to have to destroy her.

"No, she won't because you're never going to reach her. Say good bye, Nightshade. Forgive me, Rose," I said just before I let Sekhmet take over my brain.

"Is that supposed to scare me, Lily?" Nightshade said as she laughed.

Then her sadistic laughter was quickly cut off as Sekhmet's hands were instantly around her throat. She gasped for breath even as Sekhmet squeezed tighter and tighter.

"You won't harm the children. You won't hurt anyone anymore. Arkytior's already suffered enough because of you," Sekhmet said in an emotionless voice as she squeezed even harder.

"Ooh, now this is getting interesting," Missy said with a huge grin as she watched Nightshade hitting Sekhmet with everything that she had and not even making her flinch despite the pain that she was causing her.

"Are you hoping that Lily wins?" The Matriarch asked perceptively.

"I really don't care which one wins to be honest. Either way I win," Missy admitted with a chuckle.

"Remind me why you have no friends again," The Matriarch quipped making Missy glare at her.

Even as Sekhmet did her utmost to destroy Nightshade, Allison had managed to finally break free of Holly's chokehold on her before she could destroy her mind with it. Now it was all that she could do to stay one step ahead of her former friend as Holly did her absolute best to completely wipe her out.

"Holly, listen to me! Your mind has been tampered with by Missy. She's convinced that she's removed your emotions and changed you into her puppet but I don't believe her. I don't think for a second that the person that I knew is really gone. There is no way that they could ever make you forget Skaren or Richard. I know that they couldn't. Do you remember them, Holly? Please tell me that you do," Allison said as she ran from her as fast as she could.

The only answer that she got in response was an animalistic growl that sounded nothing like the person that we had known before. If there was anything of her left inside of her shattered psyche, it was far too deep for Allison to reach.

Luckily for her though, help was on the way.

Holly was just about to get within arm's reach of Allison once again when several arrows hit her straight in the chest causing her to scream in pain. Robin continued to fire volley after volley against her even as Skaren watched in horror. He knew that Robin had no choice, but this was his wife that he was attacking after all.

"Remind me again how Robin can be hurting Holly in this form since she doesn't have a body anymore, and he doesn't actually have arrows?" Aishwana said in confusion.

"This is psychic warfare, Daisy. Robin's astral body is using his own psychic energy to create those arrows that he is attacking her with right now. It's actually his mental energy attacking her mental imprint," Ivy explained as she called Aishy by the English equivalent of her name.

"Whatever. This is just too weird for me," Aishwana said.

"Says the girl who contacted us through a mirror after she had been dead for centuries," Ron said with a grin.

"Shut up,' Aishwana said with a smile.

"Will you two stop fighting for five seconds? This is serious if Lily's gone all Sekhmet because you know how she hates doing that. If Nightshade is who I think she is though, then I believe I know why. She can't be too happy about what happened to her," Violet said as she already recognized Nightshade immediately.

"Well, Koschei, it looks like you have a few more gatecrashers to this little party of yours don't you?" The Matriarch taunted.

Missy was not amused as she said, "Yes, it seems that the Nethersphere has a revolving door these days, and here I thought that I had made this place almost impossible to find much less get into now."

"It helps when you have a genius working on the problem. Or in my case, two geniuses. My sister and I are both the same person after all so we had double the brainpower on hand to help us first locate and then break into this place with our new astral projection device that we created. Or did you really think that it was just an accident that Lil got in here?" Violet said with a grin.

Missy's smile returned now as she said, "Yes, you're obviously just as smart as I've heard that you are, Sekhmet. You've gone to all of that trouble for nothing though I'm afraid. None of you are going to leave this place now that you're here though. I can assure you of that. You're all about to become my heartless servants just as Holly has. Seb, process them!"

The others began to feel themselves being pulled away to another part of the Nethersphere for a brief moment as their mental images began to briefly waver. Then that pull quickly went away, and their images solidified once more as Missy looked at them in disbelief.

"Obviously you didn't see that one coming did you, Laughing Girl?" The Matriarch said in amusement.

"Shut up before I decide to let Seb go to work on you next!" Missy shouted.

"Let him try. I haven't had my chance to kill him yet anyway. It looks like it would be fun after watching you do about a dozen times since I first came here," The Matriarch said with a dangerous look in her eyes.

"How did you do that?" Missy asked Violet as she ignored the Matriarch.

"I've anchored our astral bodies to our real bodies with my machine so that you couldn't take us anywhere against our wills. I mean I knew that you'd try something like that. As for how it works, I'll just say that we have a signal linking us to the outside world that we've focused through a white-point star. It kind of sounds like the sound of drums from what I've heard," Violet said with an evil grin.

"Ooh, I can't believe that she just went there," The Matriarch said laughing at the grimace on Missy's face at that remark.

"Who do you think that Old Rassy stole the idea from in the first place? It was originally mine. I used it to break into the dimension of the Great Vampires with even when they thought that they had it safely closed off during the First Time War. That man never had an original thought in his life believe me," Violet said.

"You didn't inspire him to do anything to me. You don't even exist in my universe," Missy protested.

"Are you sure about that though? I've gone by so many names in my life, Koschei. Even an alternate me would be almost undetectable in your universe's history if she really wanted to be, and she might very well have once been called The Other for all that you know. It really doesn't matter though. What does is that you can't redirect us for processing. We're not going anywhere until we've found Holly and taken her back with us. Then I'm going to leave my sister here to bring this place crashing down around you. It deserves to be destroyed from what I've seen of it," Violet said in a furious voice.

That was when everything went wrong at once as Nightshade managed to finally break free of Sekhmet's grasp by suddenly teleporting out of her hands. Then she appeared behind her and completely surprised her by unleashing a massive torrent of energy straight into her back making her scream out in immense pain.

Meanwhile at the exact same time Holly finally managed to reach Robin and the others and was throwing them all across the room with her incredible strength. She quickly tore through them as she continued to make a mad rampage towards the still fleeing Allison.

"Allison, run!" Violet shouted even as Holly reached her and she used her regenerative energy to hold her at bay.

Even as Allison continued to run while trying to think up a way out of this mess, Nightshade was finally telling me a shocking truth about herself that even I hadn't guessed yet.

"I have more power than just my Vortex abilities, Lily. I also have the power of the White Guardian," Nightshade said with an evil grin.

By this point Sekhmet had changed back into me once again thanks to the massive amount of pain that I was being subjected to, and I was startled by this statement as I said through teeth gritted together in pain, "What?"

"Surprised? Didn't this body seem familiar to you in any way, Lily? I realize that you can't really see it thanks to the glow that I have around me at all times, but if you could see it you'd see that I look a bit like Rose. I also look like Rose's first incarnation as well. There's a reason for that. Missy went to a lot of trouble when she created this form after all. She's used the genetic material of both incarnations of Rose along with my own in order to create my new body. I'm a mixture of my original self and Rose, Lily. Thanks to a little help from Missy's ally Fenric to help me access it, since just being a clone of Rose wouldn't guarantee that it would work all by itself, that's how I can tap into the Vortex and also the power of the White Guardian at once. I'm stealing Rose's own power and abilities from her, and she doesn't even realize it! I really love the irony of using the very power that she used to create this timeline to help destroy it. It's so fitting somehow," Nightshade said as she continued to attack me with the very power that she was bragging about.

Missy began to smile now as she said, "See? You're not the only one who can make up the clever plans are you? I created the perfect weapon to use against Rose Tyler. I made a copy of her with all of her powers and put the mind of the woman who she had wronged in charge of it. Let's see her beat that, eh? No, never mind that. Let's see you beat that. I'm betting that you and your little crew here can't. So far you can't even beat Holly much less Nighty here. Do you see the writing on the wall yet, Sekhmet? It'll be time for you to finally fall soon I think. It should be any moment now. Get ready to become a permanent part of this place. But first though . . . say something nice."

"Go to . . ." I started to say before I screamed in agony as Nightshade increased her attack on me.

"Naughty, naughty, dear! My, my, such language!" Missy said with mocking laughter.

"Mum? Where are you, Mum?" An innocent voice suddenly said surprising all of us.

"What?" Missy asked with a frown.

Those of us who knew him now realized that it was Richard. He raced towards Holly, who he somehow recognized even in her bear form, as he continued to call out to her.

"Mum, what are you doing? Stop attacking our friends. Don't you recognize us? Do you know me, Mum? It's me, Richard," Richard said as he stood fearlessly in front of Holly now.

"How did he get here? I told our Isabella not to let the children come here no matter what. It's too dangerous," Violet said in anger.

"Yeah, well I'm sure that Freya had something to do with it. I bet she distracted her and Richard slipped off to use your machine by himself. We might all be glad that he did. Look," Allison said as she pointed to Holly.

Holly had come to a complete stop now and was looking at the little boy in confusion. We could tell that something was going on in that muddled mind of hers, but none of us had any idea what at that moment.

"Richard, no! She doesn't know any of us anymore," Skaren warned as he now placed himself in-between his son and Holly.

"No, she has to know us. She's just confused is all it is. You still remember right, Mum? Please, Mum! Tell me that you remember!" Richard pleaded.

Holly now changed back to her original form and reached out to lightly touch Richard's face. I could tell that she was remembering something, but I wasn't sure what or how it would affect things.

Neither was Missy and that didn't please her one bit. She raced over to Richard and was now pointing her disintegration device right at him as she said, "No, she doesn't remember you, little boy, and furthermore she doesn't care. Frankly neither do I. Now it's time to finally get rid of all of you once and for all. It doesn't matter even if you are still attached to your bodies. If I kill your astral selves here, you'll still die in the real world. If you want something done right do it yourself I always say."

Before she could use the device though, she was suddenly attacked by Holly who had switched back to her bear form. Holly knocked the device from her hand and then lifted her up into the air as she growled at her.

"Stay away from my son!" Holly screamed at her in a furious voice.

"She's back!" I said in triumph as I started to laugh even through the pain that Nightshade was still inflicting on me.

"Nighty, Matriarch, a little help here!" Missy called out in a panicked voice as Holly threatened to rip her apart.

The Matriarch sighed as she said, "Oh, if I must. Really, Missy, no wonder the Doctor's always beating you. You never think out anything ahead of time do you? I could have anticipated that happening a mile away. You really are a bit thick though aren't you?"

Then she proceeded to attack Holly with a burst of Vortex energy that caused her to scream out in pain as she unceremoniously dropped Missy to the floor. Holly was soon sent to her knees and then completely knocked out cold by the Matriarch who then turned on the others next.

"No! Clara, don't!" I shouted in horror as I saw the Matriarch defeating one after another of my family until they were all unconscious.

"Don't be so upset, Lily. You'll soon be joining them," Nightshade said as she continued to relentlessly attack me.

"Bella, don't do this. Rose really didn't want you to die and neither did I. We both loved you," I said as I could already feel myself blacking out.

Nightshade laughed as she said in a mocking voice, "Sure you did, Lily. I believe you."

"Bella, I'm sorry," I said in a weak voice as I started to weaken and fell to my knees.

"That's not going to work, Lily. Don't be so worried though. I'm not going to kill you or your family. Not yet anyway. I need bait after all," Nightshade said with an evil grin.

I finally realized what was going on now as I said, "Oh, no."

"Oh, yes, Lily. We never expected you to come walking in here like this, but it's still worked out to our advantage anyway because you're the one that we wanted all along when we stole Holly. We wanted you in order to use you as bait to draw Rose to us. You're going to lead Rose straight into a trap because we know that she'll come here to save you and the rest of her family no matter how dangerous that she knows that it is. Unless of course she just leaves you to die too. Hey, it could happen. She did it to me after all. Then again you are her mother aren't you? Yes, I know all about that now. I have to admit that it shocked me when I first found out about it, but it made perfect sense in hindsight because you two always did have a close relationship that I could never explain away as just friendship. No, I don't think that she's going to leave you behind, Lily. Sooner or later she will come to rescue you, and that's when I'll have her. Congratulations, Lily. You just made sure that I'll finally get to destroy Rose," Nightshade said with a huge grin on her face.

That evil mocking smile was the last thing that I saw before I started to black out. My only hope now was that somehow in some way that Rose would still come through in the end even if she did walk into Nightshade's trap.

She always found a way to win, right? As I finally blacked out, I realized that Nightshade herself was the living proof that that wasn't true though.

Sometimes even Rose lost.

Next: The next chapter deals with the painful aftermath of the devastating losses that will result due to the battle between Nightshade and Rose. I won't go into much detail here but I will say that this time things won't be even close to how Lily hopes that they'll turn out. We're definitely not going to have a happy ending this time.