CHAPTER 54
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NOW TRULY THE EMPRESS OF SKARO
"It's already too late to stop me now, Doctor. I'm already changing the future even as we speak. Soon there will be no more Skaro, no more Thals, and best of all no more Daleks. I would think that you would be the first one to congratulate me," The Matriarch said with a wicked smile.
"I never congratulate anyone on committing genocide, Nanny. Can I call you Nanny?" The Doctor said with a slight smile on his face.
"Oh, so it's okay if you do it, but it's bad if anyone else does, right? Talk about major league hypocrisy," The Matriarch protested.
"What's with the Nanny bit? Is that some kind of attempt at a putdown, Doctor? What exactly is wrong with being a nanny?" Oswin asked in an annoyed voice.
"Ooh, go Clara go! You let him have it for the both of us," The Matriarch said with a chuckle.
"Hey, don't act like we're working together here. You and I are nothing alike," Oswin said in anger.
"Of course we are. The only difference between us is that I'm only doing what you want to do but never would," The Matriarch taunted.
"That's not true. I'd never attack my kids," Oswin said.
"Kids?! Oh, here we go. You actually think of those overgrown pepper pots of yours as kids. It's mad is what it is. It's totally and completely mad. You're pathetic. Do you know that?" The Matriarch said with a smirk.
"At least I don't have a naff name like the Matriarch. I mean come on. Were all the cool names already copyrighted that day or did you just decide to give up on any sense of originality whatsoever and pick one out of a hat?" Oswin asked as she smirked right back at her.
"Shut up! Both of you! Only one control freak speak at a time please!" The Doctor shouted.
"Control freak? I am not a control freak!" Both Oswin and the Matriarch protested simultaneously.
The Doctor groaned in frustration as he said, "I really should have brought Rose. She could deal with this kind of thing for me."
Oswin smiled as she said, "You called her Rose. The version of you that I know usually won't do that."
"Yes, well I used to be a bit hard headed at times but I've long since mellowed," The Doctor admitted.
"Ha! That'll be the day," The Matriarch said as she rolled her eyes.
"Stop the self-destruction of your Daleks before it's too late. Now," Oswin demanded.
"Why should I do that? The universe is far better off without having any Daleks in it, Oswin. Just think about what they did to you. How many people had to suffer as you did or worse because of them? How many died? In my new universal order, nothing like that will ever happen again. Destroying Skaro will help to ensure that,"
"The Daleks can do good things too. I know that they can. I've seen it happen. I've been told that they'll do so much more good in the future too and I believe that," Oswin said.
"I hate to admit it but that's true. Your Daleks actually do many good things and help many people throughout the universe. That's why she wants to destroy them, Clara. She doesn't want any of that to happen. What she isn't telling you is that she wants to pick and choose who lives and who dies in her new universal order herself, and your Daleks would keep her from doing that because they're a powerful force for peace in her time. Her new order will only include those who she allows to survive once she's finished killing the rest of us, more than likely people who are easily controlled with not much willpower of their own, and that's why nothing bad will ever happen because she will totally suppress free will among those who remain. It's the ultimate fantasy of a control freak," The Doctor said.
"Enough with the control freak stuff already," Oswin protested.
"I will bring peace to everyone under my guidance. I see no downside in that, Doctor," The Matriarch said.
"That's because you're not one of the people who will die. They would have plenty of problems with it," The Doctor said.
"I'm not about to let that happen. I won't have people remember me as some kind of monster," Oswin said.
"You're not going to have much of a choice in the matter, Clara dear. You're about to join Skaro in oblivion," The Matriarch said.
"Clara, be careful," The Doctor warned as he saw a murderous look come into the Matriarch's eyes.
The Matriarch grinned as she pulled a small white object out of her pocket. Oswin could see that it had 12 sides which were all in the shape of a pentagon. It was one of the strangest things that she had ever seen.
"What . . . is that?" Oswin asked as she watched it start to glow with blinding white light.
"The Doctor knows. Don't you?" The Matriarch said as her entire body began to be covered in that same light which started to gave Oswin a really bad feeling.
"The Dodecahedron. It was destroyed though. I made sure that it was blown to pieces," The Doctor said in shock.
The Dodecahedron had been the power source for the planet Tigella. The Doctor had prevented a shape-shifting alien named Meglos, who had stolen it from Tigella while posing as the Doctor himself, from using it to destroy the entire planet by causing it to destroy Meglos' own world instead.
It had been a source of incredible power, and Meglos had planned on using it to conquer and destroy every world that opposed him before the Doctor had stopped him. He had hoped that that was the last time that he would ever see it again.
Unfortunately he had just been proven wrong.
"Yes, you did destroy the original one. So I went back to a time before you arrived on Tigella. Thankfully I was able to use my power to recreate it down to the very last detail. It's one of the most powerful objects in the universe, Doctor, and it's all mine," The Matriarch said as she began to glow with its power.
"Clara, get away from her," The Doctor warned.
"You really should have kept your Guardian powers, Oswin. Instead you gave most of them to Cydonia so that you could have more of a life with that lame excuse for a husband of yours. It's ironic really because if you had kept them then you might have been able to keep yourself from dying here today. Now you won't have any kind of life with dear old John at all, will you?" The Matriarch taunted her.
The Matriarch now started to use her new power to attack the TARDIS itself as she said, "It was very clever to protect the TARDIS from me with Vortex shielding, Doctor, but as you can see it ultimately didn't do you any good. It was so sweet of you to bring it right here to me like this and make things much easier for me, Old Man. Now I can use your own power against you just like you like to do to others. You're both about to die as I cause your TARDIS to explode and take both of you and Skaro along with it. Hopefully we'll have a repeat of the last time that the TARDIS exploded, and I can use my new power to remake the universe from the start. It'll be so much easier that way."
"You're completely insane," Oswin said in disbelief.
"No, I'm just trying to use the most logical method to solve the situation. The Doctor taught me that there have to be sacrifices sometimes and that's all this is, Oswin. This is a necessary sacrifice for the future well-being of the universe. I have to admit that it will be fun to sacrifice both of you in particular though. I'm really going to enjoy seeing the two of you atomized right in front of me while I'm protected by my power," The Matriarch said with an evil laugh.
"I don't think so, Captain Psycho," Oswin said as she began to attack her with a combination of her gauntlets and what was left of her Guardian power.
The Matriarch laughed as she said, "I don't even feel it, Ozzie. You're so far out of your league now that it's really just so sad, Dalek Girl. You should have just stuck to burning soufflés. You would have been much better off."
"Doctor, please tell me that you have a plan," Oswin said in desperation.
"Don't worry, Clara. I'm working on one even as we speak," The Doctor said.
"So that's a big no then," Oswin said with a sigh.
"Well, I don't see you contributing anything with that pudding brain of yours," The Doctor said.
"Now is not the time for your usual affectionate comments to me, Doctor. I'm trying to save the universe here. I thought that you might want to contribute an idea or two," Oswin said with a small smile on her face despite the seriousness of their current situation.
"He can't save you this time, Oswin. No one can. This is it for all of you. Now my new world begins at last," The Matriarch said with a huge smile on her face as the TARDIS began to shake and come apart all around them while she continued to attack it.
"Could this be what spurs your change, Clara? Yes, it very well could be, couldn't it? You never did tell me how it happened after all," The Doctor said more to himself than anyone else.
"What are you talking about?" Oswin asked in confusion as she wondered if he had finally lost it.
The Matriarch however seemed to know exactly what he was saying as her eyes widened in alarm and she said, "No, it's still too early for that yet. That didn't happen until later. I made sure to come back well before that."
"Before what?" Oswin asked in growing frustration.
"You don't know if you did or not though do you? None of us really knows for sure when it first happened because she kept that knowledge from us for a while. I'm sure Rose knows of course, but she never told Clara so therefore you don't know either," The Doctor said with a triumphant smile.
"I know that you're basing all of your hopes on what is probably just a guess, Doctor, and a bad one at that. That's what I know. How very sloppy of you, Old Man," The Matriarch said with a smile that hid more than a trace of uncertainty behind it.
"Doctor, can anybody join in on this conversation or do you have to be from the future to know what you're both yammering on about like a pair of nutters?" Oswin asked in an angry voice.
"Clara, I want you to seriously think about this because it may be the only way to save both of our lives now and the lives of so many others as well. If Cydonia can call upon the combined abilities of the other Clara echoes, then doesn't it stand to reason that you, being the original Clara, can too?" The Doctor said.
"You're wasting your time, Doctor. She hasn't learned how to do it yet," The Matriarch said.
"Yes, but we always learn best under pressure don't we?" The Doctor said.
"You're saying that in the future that I can tap into the power of the echoes like Cydonia can? How though? They're not even my echoes. They belong to the other Clara," Oswin disbelief.
"You're the same person as my Clara though. You're both my Clara in a sense so they're as much your echoes as they are hers. You've already been tapping into their abilities recently without even realizing it, haven't you? Or haven't you noticed that you've been getting faster lately? Where do you think that extra speed is coming from that you've noticed lately?" The Doctor asked.
"Shut up, Doctor! Just shut up!" The Matriarch said as she now stopped attacking the TARDIS and started to attack the Doctor instead.
He began to run across the Console Room as he did his best to stay one step ahead of her attacks in order to save his life while Clara now saw that the Matriarch was terrified. The Doctor must be telling the truth. He had to be because she had noticed herself that she had been running faster lately than she ever had in her life before, but she had no idea how to draw on those new abilities consciously like Cydonia did.
She knew that she had better learn fast though.
"It's all over, Doctor. It's over and done with and no one not even Ozzie is going to save the day this time. You can't stop it now, Doctor. Just face it. You've finally lost at last. It's over!" The Matriarch shouted.
"Well, I'm afraid that shouting won't make it happen for you, Nanny. If shouting brought about the end of the universe, it would have happened a long time ago because I've faced plenty of shouting maniacs down in my time who all went on and on about how I was finally finished at last. I'm still here though, Nanny. Why is that do you think?" The Doctor taunted her as he continued to dodge her attacks.
"It's because he's clever that's why and you know it, Psycho Girl. He's stumbled upon the truth, hasn't he? This is the day that I learn to do the same thing that Cydonia does. It has to be. I just wish that I knew how that I was supposed to do that. No one exactly left me an instruction manual telling me all about it now, did they?" Oswin said.
"You won't do anything, Oswin. All that you're going to do is to die!" The Matriarch said as she finally directed a massive blast of energy at Oswin.
Oswin screamed in pain and then her body completely disintegrated right before the Doctor's horrified eyes as he screamed, "Clara!"
The Matriarch smiled evilly as she said, "It's over now, Old Man. You took a desperate gamble just one time too many, and now you've finally failed at one. You were wrong this time. Oswin is dead and soon both Skaro and you will join her. History is already being changed even as we speak. The Empress of the Daleks is dead!"
"Oh, Clara," The Doctor said in a sickened voice.
"Now, Doctor, it's finally time at last. Let my new universal rule of eternal peace begin!" The Matriarch said with joy as she began to attack the TARDIS once more while the Doctor stood there helpless to stop her.
Back on Skaro, the Matriarch's Daleks continued to explode and do massive damage to the entire planet and everyone on it. All of the fighting that had gone on before had long since stopped and degenerated into complete chaos as everyone now ran for their lives in absolute terror.
There were no enemies now. All that was on anyone's mind was pure survival as they all did their best to escape from the rapidly disintegrating cities before they too were consumed by the flames.
"What are we going to do, Father?" A young Thal child said as she ran alongside her only remaining family.
"Just keep running. Maybe if we can make it to the mountains we can survive. Hopefully we'll be protected from whatever happens there," Her father told her.
Suddenly their path was blocked by Epsilon who said in an almost shocked tone, "YOU BROUGHT YOUR CHILDREN HERE? WERE YOU THAT CONFIDENT OF VICTORY?"
"Let the child go at least, you monster!" The Thal said as he pointed a gun at Omega.
"YOUR GUN WILL HAVE NO EFFECT ON ME. MY OUTER SHELL IS DESIGNED TO SURVIVE ALL BUT THE MOST POWERFUL OF ATTACKS. IT IS IRRELEVANT ANYWAY AS I ONLY WISH TO LEAD YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET TO SAFETY. THAT'S ASSUMING THAT SAFETY IS STILL POSSIBLE AT THIS POINT OF COURSE," Epsilon said.
"You want to help us?" The Thal asked in shock.
"That's right. Come on. We don't have much time. We're trying to get everyone out of the cities before they're completely engulfed in flames because no one will have a chance of survival at that point," Angela said as she joined Epsilon now.
"Why would you do this? We're your enemies," The Thal said still suspicious.
"IT'S WHAT THE EMPRESS WOULD WANT. SHE VALUES THE LIVES OF EVERYONE," Epsilon said.
"What he said," Angela said with a smile.
Just as it seemed that they had convinced the Thals to go with them though, one of the Separatist Daleks came flying towards them in a panicked state as it shouted, "WHY IS THE MATRIARCH EXTERMINATING US? WE HAVE MADE NO MISTAKES. WHY SHOULD WE CEASE TO FUNCTION?"
"PERHAPS BECAUSE YOU'RE SO STUPID AS TO HAVE FOLLOWED HER IN THE FIRST PLACE," Epsilon said as he shot the Dalek before he could reach them.
"Get down," Angela called out just as the Dalek exploded.
She covered the two Thals with her own body to protect them as she glared at Epsilon.
"Brilliant. Destroy the Dalek right as he got to us so he'd blow up right in front of us. You could have killed us," Angela said in disbelief.
"BETTER THAN LETTING THE ENEMY DALEK REACH US AND THEN EXPLODE ISN'T IT?" Epsilon responded.
"I see your point," Angela said with a smile.
"You are trying to save us," The Thal realized.
"It took you long enough didn't it?" Angela said with a chuckle.
"There will be no survivors here today but us. We are now the future of Skaro," The leader of the Time Lord Daleks said as he and his small group now appeared out of nowhere with their guns trained on them.
They then began firing on the four of them as the Thal child screamed in terror.
Their blasts never reached their targets however. They all suddenly stopped in mid-air and were redirected at the Time Lord Daleks instead. The four of them screamed in pain as they were knocked over by their own attacks.
"I don't think so. No one's dying here today if I can help it," A voice said behind them.
"What? No! It's not possible. The Matriarch said that she would deal with you," The Time Lord Dalek leader said in a shocked voice.
"Apparently she was wrong," Oswin said as she stood there before them glowing with power.
At that moment the fully restored TARDIS materialized in front of them and the Doctor came out of it dragging the unconscious body of the Matriarch with him as he said, "Yes, your ally seems to have failed. You can't really blame her though. She's only human."
"No more cracks about humans, Doctor. It was a human who saved you and your TARDIS wasn't it?" Oswin chastised him.
"Yes, but you've always been leaps ahead of the other pudding brains, Clara," The Doctor said.
"Thank you so much," Oswin said with a small smile.
"What's going on, Empress?" Angela said in disbelief.
Oswin showed her the Dodecahedron as she said, "I managed to somehow use a power that I didn't even know that I had to bring my body back together after it was disintegrated. I still don't know how I did that, but I guess fear really does make a good motivator. All I remember is dying and then coming back to life again while the Matriarch had her back turned to me. All I had to do was attack her with my gauntlets from behind and knock her out cold. Then I took this from her. It's so powerful that it could incinerate anyone that I don't like in an instant. Do you get the point, you Time Lord wannabes?"
The Time Lord Daleks all hesitated now as they could sense the incredible power that Oswin now held and then their leader said, "We will pledge our loyalty to you. You are our Empress now."
"ALL HAIL THE EMPRESS!" The other three Time Lord Daleks chanted in unison.
"I WOULDN'T TRUST THAT TO LAST FOR LONG, EMPRESS," Epsilon warned.
"I just needed to make sure that it would last long enough for me to do this," Oswin said as she began to use the Dodecahedron's power to blanket the entire planet now.
"What are you doing?" Angela asked as she watched the energy spread everywhere.
"Watch," Oswin said with a smile.
They all did as she said and watched in fascination as all of the fires on Skaro were suddenly put out all at once and all of the remaining members of the Matriarch's Daleks were rendered incapable of exploding anymore. Unfortunately Oswin couldn't use it to bring the dead back or repair the massive damage that had already been done all throughout the planet. It was times like this that she really missed her Guardian powers. Maybe the Matriarch had been right and she had given them up a little too easily.
Then again if she was gaining new powers of her own sooner or later maybe she wouldn't need them.
"I did it," Oswin smiled as she collapsed to her knees from exhaustion.
"Clara?" Angela asked her in alarm.
"Well, I did just die, Angie. I also used a new power that I didn't even know that I had. That's really drained me. I feel like I could sleep at least a couple of days," Oswin said.
"Humans. You're so limited with your primitive sleep cycles," The Doctor said with a snort.
Before Oswin could come up with a sufficiently snarky comment to reply back to him with, she suddenly heard cheers go up all throughout the area. They were cheers of joy and gratitude, and Oswin smiled as she heard them.
"ALL HAIL THE EMPRESS!" Several Dalek voices chorused.
Then to Oswin's shock, she heard several non-Dalek voices shouting the same thing.
"What? Did I hear that right? Was that the Thals?" Oswin said in amazement.
"I think it was. I think that they finally found out that you were never our enemy at all but our greatest friend," The Thal father said with a warm smile.
"So she's the Empress?" His daughter asked.
"That's right, sweetie. She's the Empress of Skaro. The Empress of all of the inhabitants of Skaro," Her father said.
Oswin looked at him in surprise as Epsilon said, "IT'S TRUE, EMPRESS. I AM RECEIVING TRANSMISSIONS FROM THE THALS THAT THEY ARE AGREEING TO YOUR RULE IN EXCHANGE FOR THE RIGHT TO LIVE HERE PEACEFULLY."
Oswin smiled as she said, "Tell them that they've got a deal. What about the Matriarch's Daleks?"
"THEY HAVE ALL FLED BUT THEY WERE HEARD TO BE SCREAMING ABOUT THE MATRIARCH'S BETRAYAL AS THEY LEFT SO IT IS DOUBTFUL THAT THEY WILL EVER SIDE WITH HER AGAIN IN THE FUTURE," Epsilon said.
"Oh, well. You can't win them all I suppose," Oswin said.
"This one is close enough I think," Angela said.
"Yeah, it's certainly good enough for me anyway," Oswin said with a sense of relief in her voice.
"Clara, what do you plan on doing with that?" The Doctor said as he looked pointedly at the Dodecahedron.
"You can have it if you want it, Old Man. It's yours. I definitely don't want to have it around to tempt me anymore," Oswin said as she handed it to the Doctor.
"YOU WOULD GIVE UP SUCH POWER SO EASILY?" One of the Time Lord Daleks said in shock.
"SHE DOESN'T NEED IT. SHE ALREADY HAS WHAT IT TAKES TO RULE US WITHOUT IT. OR DO YOU QUESTION HER RULE ALREADY?" Epsilon said in a threatening tone.
"Oh, I wouldn't if I were them, Eppy. You see I just got access to their self-destruct codes by hacking right through their firewalls while we've all been sitting here talking, and if they decided to turn on me at this point I'd just have to use them wouldn't I?" Oswin threatened.
Then her tone softened as she added, "I don't want to do that though. I want you to follow me because you want to not because I'm threatening you. That's not how I like to do things. What do you say? You could stay with me or leave. I promise if you want to leave that I won't use the self-destruct. You'll be free to go."
The Time Lord Daleks whispered to each other (or tried to anyway since Daleks can't whisper to save their lives so it was really a much lower version of shouting), and then they all lined up before her and raised their eyestalks in a gesture of salute. Oswin smiled as she realized that somehow she had won them over.
"We will serve you for having the skill and ruthlessness necessary to use our own self-destruct codes against us. You will make an excellent Dalek," The Time Lord Dalek leader said.
"Uh, thanks," Oswin said with a frown.
"DON'T WORRY, EMPRESS. THEY WILL UNDERSTAND HOW TO PROPERLY BEHAVE ONE DAY JUST AS WE ALL EVENTUALLY DID," Epsilon reassured her.
Oswin laughed as she said, "I guess you're right, Eppy. I hope so anyway."
The Doctor nodded in approval at how the whole situation had turned out and said, "I'm going to throw this into the nearest supernova and destroy it. As for the Matriarch . . ."
Then he stiffened as he said, "She's gone."
"You weren't paying any attention to her?" Oswin asked in disbelief.
"I thought that surely all of these Daleks would be doing that for me!" The Doctor protested.
"I WAS WATCHING, EMPRESS. SHE JUST VANISHED RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES. SHE APPEARED TO POSSESS JUST ENOUGH POWER LEFT IN HER WEAKENED CONDITION TO TELEPORT HERSELF AWAY TO SAFETY. NONE OF US COULD HAVE STOPPED HER IN TIME SO I DIDN'T MENTION IT UNTIL I HAD TO DO SO," Epsilon admitted.
"It's alright, Eppy. You really can't win them all it seems. We don't have time to mess around with her anyway. We have a planet to repair," Oswin said.
"Now you'll have plenty of new hands to call upon in order to do that," The Thal father said happily.
Oswin smiled at that sentiment and hoped that this newfound peace between the Thals and the Daleks lasted. She would really love for all of them to finally live peacefully together at last after such a long terrible history of constant hatred and fighting between them.
Hopefully that could finally happen starting here today.
The Doctor quietly left without saying good bye as he went off to destroy the Dodecahedron. Then he hesitated. Maybe he should keep it after all. The day might be fast approaching when he could use all of the advantages that he could get especially if the rumors that he had heard about some strange new menace to all of time and space were true.
He could already feel the timelines of this time, his own past, starting to subtly change thanks to some outside influence that hadn't been there before. Could both things be related?
He put the Dodecahedron next to the Black Scrolls of Rassilon that he had taken from the Trickster in a storage area under the Console as he continued to ponder that question while he wrote on his chalkboard.
Next: Oswin reunites with Marissa, Molly, and Cydonia (yay!) and of course John and Melody while she supervises the reconstruction of Skaro and tries to learn more about how to tap into her new power. It seems like despite the recent attacks that a new day has started on Skaro at last and that things will be going much better for everyone there from now on. Is that really true though? It would be a real shame if someone used this opportunity to bring all of this good will to an end by attacking now when Skaro is at its weakest wouldn't it?