CHAPTER 22
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This story is continued from The Adventures of Rose Tyler, Time Lady Chapter 74.
Silence Falls Over the Earth Part 2
"I'm not going to say it again, Kovarian. Let Colonel Mace go and surrender yourselves now, or my Daleks are going to tear you and your little crafty little minions apart," Oswin threatened.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that. For you see, I have some allies of my own," Kovarian said as she pushed a button on her Vortex Manipulator.
Instants later, hundreds of Cybermen arrived out of nowhere and began firing on Oswin's Daleks. In addition to the Cybermen, several Headless Monks and Silence joined into the fight as well.
"EXTERMINATE THEM!" Oswin's Daleks started shouting as they started to fight back against the Cybermen.
Oswin meanwhile started running toward Kovarian. If she could capture her, then maybe the Silence would surrender. It was worth a shot anyway.
"It won't be that easy to capture me, Miss Oswald. For you see, I can bring in new reinforcements in the blink of an eye," Kovarian said as she touched yet another button on her Vortex Manipulator.
Queen Xanxia, Magnus Greel, Mr. Sin, the Monk, Eldrad, and a newly built duplicate of the recently destroyed Mr. Thanatos suddenly appeared next to Kovarian via transmat. Oswin put up her force field and charged up her gauntlets as she prepared to do battle with them.
"As you can see, I've brought some friends with me," Kovarian said with an evil grin.
"So did I," Oswin said as Marissa's TARDIS materialized behind her.
Marissa, Koschei, Shehzadi, and Lissa came out of the TARDIS and stood next to her. Now things were more even! Oswin thought to herself as the two sides began to face off against one another.
Suddenly Cassiopeia arrived in between both groups after having used her Vortex Manipulator to get there, and Shehzadi's eyes widened in fear. Oswin had heard from Rose that she was on their side now, but she wasn't sure if she would stay that way or not if Kovarian sank her claws back into her here. She would have to watch out for her and make sure that she stayed herself.
"Hello, Thorn! Exactly where have you been all of this time? Ah, well. It's better that you came late than never I suppose. You've come back just in time to help us defeat Rose Tyler's friends and to take over this planet in the name of the Silence," Kovarian said.
"I'm on their side now. The side of my mother," Cassiopeia said.
"I am your mother, dear. Rose Tyler abandoned you," Kovarian said.
"Liar! You stole me from her. Now, I'm going to pay you back for that. Oh, and by the way, my name is Cassiopeia!" Cassiopeia said as she came to stand next to Oswin now.
Shehzadi moved away from her and was visibly shaking in fear now. Cassiopeia looked at her sadly and said, "I'm sorry, Shehzadi. I promise that you're safe from me. I don't work for Kovarian anymore."
Shehzadi looked at Cassiopeia's eyes and saw the truth of what she had said in them. She could tell now that something had changed about Cassiopeia since the last time that she saw her. She nodded and began to relax.
"If you stand with them against me, then you will die with them," Kovarian said.
"Gladly," Cassiopeia said.
"Kill them. All of them," Kovarian said coldly.
The new Mr. Thanatos began to attack first and fired deadly projectiles in all directions with one hand while he pulled out a sword from inside of himself to hold in the other one. He began to use it to start hacking away at Oswin and her allies.
Oswin poured energy from both of her gauntlets into the robot at the same time which caused him to fall over for a moment before he quickly got back up again. In the blink of an eye, he appeared right next to Oswin and almost impaled her on his sword. Luckily, Oswin was just a little bit quicker than he was though and used her temporal shift ability to quickly get out of the way of the sword just in the nick of time.
Cassiopeia then appeared behind the robot out of nowhere and melted it into slag with a single gesture as golden white energy poured out of her hand. The robot wasn't even finished melting yet before Cassiopeia walked through its remains in order to go after Kovarian.
Oswin was impressed and smiled at her. She shouldn't be too surprised though. This was Rose's daughter after all.
Then to Oswin's horror, the robot began to reassemble himself. He was suddenly back together again and ready to fight within a minute.
"That's new. Rose never said that he could do that," Oswin said in surprise.
"He couldn't before. This new Mr. Thanatos has had a few improvements however. Now he's made out of nanotech that will rebuild him every time that he has been destroyed. This time no one can destroy him for long!" Greel boasted.
"He uses nanotech! Really? Did you even do any research on me at all?" Oswin asked as she began to laugh at him.
Oswin began to pour her own specialized Dalek nanogenes out of a special slot in her gauntlets. The nanogenes began to rewrite Mr. Thanatos' programming instantly, and he now came to stand next to Oswin protectively now.
"All hail the Empress!" Mr. Thanatos said as he spoke for the first time.
"What?!" Greel asked in complete shock.
"He works for me now. You made a huge mistake telling me that he was made out of nanotech. I mastered that a long time ago, Greel. I even rewrote his programming to allow him to speak just for the fun of it," Oswin said with a grin.
Now Mr. Thanatos began to move forward to attack the Silence and their allies as Greel himself came after Oswin now. As he moved within range of her, Greel attempted to use his portable extraction chamber, which could steal the life force from others and give it to him, on Oswin.
To his complete surprise, the device didn't work on her. He tried it again and again, but it had no effect at all.
"Something wrong?" Oswin asked with a giggle.
"My device should have drained the life force from you in less than a minute, but it didn't work. What did you do to it?" Greel cried out in irritation.
"I didn't do anything to it at all, Pig Face. It's still working fine. It just doesn't affect me. You see a funny thing happened to me recently. I was possessed by the Scythe of Anubus, and I discovered that it gave me an immunity to having my life force drained. I discovered it when someone tried to use something similar on me not too long ago. Weird, huh?" Oswin said happily.
"This is not possible. My technology should work no matter what!" Greel said in anger.
"Tell that to the Osirians. They're the ones who did this to me," Oswin said.
"I will destroy you. Mr. Sin, kill her!" Greel commanded his puppet like cyborg assassin.
Mr. Sin pulled out a knife and leapt at Oswin like a wild animal before Oswin could raise her force field in time. She grabbed ahold of the arm with the knife however and held the knife away from her as she wrestled with the surprisingly strong artificial man.
Then to Oswin's surprise, she saw that her hands were glowing. Mr. Sin began to scream and dropped the knife as he slumped over onto the ground. Oswin meanwhile felt newly energized as if she had rested for a week.
"No! I've still got the life absorbing powers from the Scythe too. I never wanted those," Oswin said in a very upset voice.
"Mr. Sin?" Greel asked in fear.
"He's not dead. I let go of him once I realized what was happening," Oswin said in a shaky voice.
"Don't worry about her. She's no threat to us. She's too shocked by what just happened to be a threat for the moment. Help me with the robot and Cassiopeia. They're the most dangerous ones here," Kovarian ordered Greel.
"I resent that remark," Koschei said.
"So do I. I'm the most dangerous woman in the universe," Lissa said proudly.
"My daughter, ladies and gentlemen," Marissa said with chagrin.
All of them more than held their own against Kovarian and her group while the Cybermen continued to fight with the Daleks in the background. Oswin meanwhile, unnoticed by everyone, had stopped fighting and was standing there in shock.
She was terrified of her new ability and afraid that it might mean that she could still be possessed by the Scythe in some way. She had hoped that she had freed herself from it, but it seemed that she hadn't. At least when she drained Mr. Sin's life force, it hadn't caused her to start hungering for more of it like the Scythe had made her do. Not yet anyway.
That was what was worrying her at the moment. She was so terrified of accidently draining someone's life force that she had been shocked into immobility for fear of doing it again and somehow turning back into the Scythe's slave once more.
"EMPRESS?" Dalek Epsilon finally asked as he noticed her standing there without moving and flew over to her.
"I think I'm being infected by the Scythe again," Oswin said in a scared voice. She was so upset that she hadn't even told Epsilon not to call her Empress as she usually did.
Epsilon scanned her quickly and said in a gentle tone, "NEGATIVE. THE LIFE FORCE DRAINING TOUCH AND IMMUNITY TO HAVING YOUR OWN LIFE FORCE DRAINED ARE NOTHING BUT LEFTOVERS OF YOUR POSSESSION BY THE SCYTHE. IT ALTERED YOUR BODY IN ORDER TO GIVE YOU THOSE ABILITIES SO THAT YOU COULD FEED IT MORE EFFICIENTLY. I AM READING NO OTHER NEW ABILITIES HOWEVER. THERE IS NO OTHER CONSCIOUSNESS IN YOUR MIND, EMPRESS. DO NOT WORRY."
"Are you sure?" Oswin asked.
"YES, EMPRESS," Epsilon said.
"Thank you. You've just made me feel a lot better. I never want to be turned into that thing the Scythe made me into ever again," Oswin said in relief.
"I WOULD NEVER LET THAT HAPPEN TO YOU AGAIN, EMPRESS. I WOULD RATHER DIE FIRST," Epsilon said.
"I know. I don't want you to have to do that though, Eppy. I've gotten used to having you around," Oswin said as her usual cheerful demeanor returned now.
"AS I HAVE YOU, EMPRESS," Epsilon said.
"You've been calling me Empress this entire time, haven't you?" Oswin said as she just now noticed this.
"YES, I AM SORRY, OSWIN. MY MISTAKE," Epsilon said.
"No. You don't have to apologize. It's okay," Oswin said.
"THE CYBER PESTS ARE BEING RIPPED APART BY OUR FORCES, OSWIN," Epsilon reported in a proud voice.
"Good. Now if there were only enough of us to spread across the planet and do the same everywhere. At least we might be able to free London anyway and make it a place of relative safety," Oswin said.
"WE CAN PROCEED FROM LONDON TO THE OTHER HUMAN CAPITALS ONE BY ONE UNTIL THEY ARE FREED AS WELL. THIS MAY TAKE A WHILE HOWEVER," Epsilon said.
"It will have to be the plan for now, Eppy. I'm sorry to have to ask this of you, but I don't want Earth to stay in the Silence's hands," Oswin said in a guilty voice.
"I WILL DO WHATEVER YOU ASK OF ME, OSWIN. ALL OF US WILL. WE WOULD GLADLY DIE FOR YOU," Epsilon said.
"I would never ask you to," Oswin said.
"YOU NEVER HAVE TO. WE DO IT BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU," Epsilon admitted.
"I love all of you too, Epsilon. I never thought that I'd hear myself say that about any Dalek. How things change, huh?" Oswin said.
"YES AND THEY HAVE CHANGED FOR THE BETTER THIS TIME. YOU HAVE MADE US REALIZE OUR TRUE DESTINY. YOU ARE THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO OUR RACE, EMPRESS. I MEAN OSWIN. YOU ARE LEADING US AWAY FROM THE DARKNESS THAT THE FALSE GOD, DAVROS, HAS KEPT US IN FOR SO LONG. IT IS A DARKNESS THAT HAS BEEN HOLDING US BACK FROM ACHIEVING OUR TRUE PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE. FOR THAT, WE ARE GLADLY WILLING TO DIE IN YOUR NAME," Epsilon said.
"Try not to die if you can. I'd like to hold onto all of you for a long time," Oswin said as she patted Epsilon's casing affectionately.
"WE WILL DO OUR BEST, EMP- OSWIN," Epsilon said.
At that moment, Eldrad interrupted their conversation as he walked up to them and said, "The arrogance! Do you think that you are immune to our attack? You are nothing but a weak human girl, and I will crush you like kindling beneath my hands. You are as nothing compared to the might of the Kastrian race!"
"Rose told me about you, Eldrad, and you're the one who is nothing. Your people committed suicide just to get away from you. That should have given you a clue what kind of a monster that you really are but not you, no. Your ego is so huge that never even occurred to you, did it?" Oswin said as she put her force field up and Epsilon stood protectively next to her.
"I will crush you now, and then I will crush those pathetic tin cans that call you their leader," Eldrad said.
He began to hammer at Oswin's force field while Epsilon opened fire on the Kastrian with his gun stalk. Oswin then fired both of her gauntlets at full power at Eldrad and temporarily stunned him as she grabbed his ring off of his finger.
"No! Give me the ring!" Eldrad screamed.
"I don't think so. This is it for you, Eldrad. I'm not letting you harm anyone else," Oswin said.
Oswin whistled and Mr. Thanatos suddenly appeared out of nowhere behind Eldrad and cut him in half with his sword. Eldrad's body hit the ground, and then turned to dust instantly on impact.
Kovarian stared at her in shock as she witnessed this. It seemed that she was very, very wrong about how dangerous that Oswin really was.
"Leave now before the same thing happens to you," Oswin warned.
"Who are you to command me, little girl?" Kovarian said defiantly.
"I am the Empress of the Daleks, Kovarian, and I will no longer stand by and let people like you manipulate and corrupt the destinies of everyone around you. One way or another that ends now. My Daleks and I have the power to change that now, and that's exactly what we're going to do," Oswin said with no hesitation in her voice.
Everyone there heard her and looked at her in shock, especially Marissa. No one had ever heard her address herself by that title before. Epsilon, however, seemed to be overjoyed by this change of events. He seemed almost ecstatic.
Oswin had realized something here today. The Daleks had been calling her Empress out of respect and love for her. She had been disrespecting them by refusing to answer to their name for her. She would no longer do that anymore. She was proud to be their Empress, and she would gladly call herself that from now on.
Oswin took Eldrad's ring and put it in her belt. She was going to keep it with her from now on so that Eldrad couldn't regenerate a new body for himself from it.
"I will not surrender to you, 'Empress'. I will crush you and your little band of misfits here and now," Kovarian said.
"I don't think so," Oswin said with complete confidence in herself as she started towards Greel next.
Greel was terrified of her however after what she had done to Mr. Sin, Mr. Thanatos, and Eldrad. He picked up the still unconscious Mr. Sin, activated his Vortex Manipulator, and ran from her. The Monk did the same. Anyone who could take down Eldrad like that was not someone that he wanted to go toe to toe with without some kind of preparation.
"You ever get the feeling that everyone knows something that you don't, Kovarian?" Oswin joked.
Kovarian knew that she was outnumbered now. It was just her and Xanxia left now, and Xanxia was looking very nervous at the moment like she might leave too. Her forces were being torn apart by the Daleks and were now almost gone. She knew that she had no choice. She had to abandon London. It didn't matter though. She could always take it back later. She had the rest of the world more or less under her control after all.
"Retreat!" Kovarian ordered, and the remaining members of the Silence all left along with her and Xanxia.
London was freed at last.
Colonel Mace walked up to Oswin and held out his hand to her. Oswin hesitantly shook it and was glad when nothing happened to him.
"Thank you, Empress Oswin. Without you and your friends, we'd all be in the hands of the Silence right now. Now we can start to lead a resistance against them from London. It can become our main center of operations," Mace said.
"No problem, Colonel. I was glad to help. My Daleks are going to do their best to free more of the world's cities as quickly as we can. I hope that I can give you some more cities to join you in your resistance soon," Oswin said.
The Daleks surrounded Oswin now and began to chant in unison, "ALL HAIL THE EMPRESS! ALL HAIL THE EMPRESS OF THE DALEKS!"
"Thank you! I love all of you too," Oswin said with a huge smile on her face.
Lissa looked at Oswin with a look of awe on her face. She had always read about this moment in the history books, but she had no idea that she had actually been here to witness it. This was huge. This was the day that the Daleks began to change forever, and Oswin would lead the way. This was the day that the Daleks started to become one of mankind's greatest allies instead of its enemy.
Colonel Mace got unto his cell phone and made a quick call to Rose Tyler. As soon as she answered the phone, he said, "Ma'am, London is free. I repeat, London is free."
"Good. I never expected anything less from Oswin, Colonel. She's going to continue to try to free other cities, and I'd like for you to do your best to help her with what forces that you have left," Rose said from inside of her TARDIS as it continued to travel through the Vortex.
"Yes, Ma'am!" Colonel Mace said.
"Don't call me that. You're making me sound old, and I'm only 230. Call me Rose," Rose said in a happy voice.
"Yes, Ma'am," Colonel Mace said.
"Fine, be that way. Alright, now I'm moving to the next step of my plan. I'm bringing in more reinforcements to help all of you. I'm calling in one of the big guns now. You said that you think that Kovarian has made the UNIT base in Peru into her main center of operations?" Rose asked.
"Yes, Ma'am! The Brigadier still remains free, and he has confirmed this himself. He's our spy on the inside," Colonel Mace said.
"Good old Alastair. Alright, when he contacts you next time tell him that I'm sending him some help. Tell him that I'm sending in the greatest warrior in the universe to help free the base for him," Rose said.
"Yes, Ma'am. I'll do that. I'll keep you informed of any new developments here in London and throughout the world as they develop. This is Colonel Mace signing off," Colonel Mace said as he ended the call.
Rose materialized her TARDIS on Gallifrey for a prearranged meeting with the person who she was going to send next to help Earth. She waited as another TARDIS materialized next to hers minutes later.
Lily stepped out of it and said, "I'm ready, Rose. I've been more than ready to go after that woman ever since I found out what she did to Cassiopeia. Kovarian is going to answer to me for that now. She's going to find out firsthand why people are still afraid to say my name out loud in certain parts of the universe."
"She's in the UNIT base in Peru. The Brigadier is still free and hiding inside of there somewhere so maybe you can link up with him after you get there. I'm sure that he can help tell you all about how to take the base back from the Silence in the quickest and easiest way possible. He knows that place in and out after all because he's been there for years. He knows that you're coming so he should already be expecting you. Go get her, Mum!" Rose said proudly.
"Oh, I will, Rose. I will," Lily said in a cold voice.
She was looking forward to this a great deal. So was Sekhmet. She was really looking forward to setting her free for once and watching her tear Kovarian's base down around her head and burning it into ashes!
Next for Silence Falls Over the Earth: Part 3 of this storyline continues in Lily and Robin Chapter 53 coming soon as Lily confronts Kovarian and tries to take out the main Silence base.
Next in this title: Oswin has to help her Daleks deal with the fallout of the Silence storyline after they suffer a devastating loss. It's one that will affect Oswin deeply as well, and she may never be the same afterwards.