CHAPTER 56
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ARMY OF THE CLARAS
As what Oswin somehow instinctively knew was Clara's dead echoes attacked the entire planet in unison, she instantly started to take charge of the situation. Even as worn out and tired as she felt, she was not about to let that stop her.
"John, take Melody out of here. I'll just have to bring her back to her parents a little bit earlier than I had planned and before I had time to properly tell them about her first. Mari, you need to go too and take Molly and Cydonia with you. Go on now while you still can!" Oswin shouted at the others.
"I'm not going anywhere. I can send Melody to safety by giving her my Vortex Manipulator and setting it on a timer," John protested.
"We're not going anywhere either. Do you really think that I would ever just run out on my little sister like that?" Marissa said in a hurt voice.
"I'm not going either, Clara. I'll admit that I'm terrified but I'm not leaving you here all alone either," Molly said.
"Ditto, Clara, and I can pretty much guarantee that I'm far more terrified than she is," Cydonia said in an extremely nervous voice.
"Cy, you don't have to do this," Oswin said.
"Yes, I do because I know what you're about to do. I know exactly how you think, remember? I'd never be able to live with myself if I ran out on you now. Making sure that you don't kill yourself is worth a few more bad dreams every night I think," Cydonia said.
"Alright, what are you planning, Clara?" John asked as he realized from the look of fear on Cydonia's face that it couldn't be anything good.
Oswin hesitated a moment and then underneath his scrutinizing gaze she finally admitted, "We're being invaded by an army of Clara's dead echoes who have all been brought back to life somehow. So . . . I thought that maybe I could even up the odds a little bit by trying to bring in all of the living ones. I'm not sure if it will work or not but I've got to try."
"And you were planning on telling me this when exactly?" John asked in disbelief.
"Okay, I should have told you. I admit that. I was trying to protect you though. You and Melody," Oswin said.
"Who's going to protect you though?" John asked in anger.
"I don't need protecting. I want to stay here and help," Melody protested.
"No!" Both Oswin and John said at once which only made Melody begin to silently pout with an indignant look on her face.
"Well, it's good to know that they can at least agree on something, isn't it?" Molly said to Marissa with a grin.
"Zip it, Mol," Oswin said in a furious voice.
"Clara, you don't have to do this. You can let Angela handle it. This isn't your responsibility especially not when you're pregnant," John said with concern.
"You still don't understand do you? This is more than just me being overly responsible, John. This is much more than just a job to me. These people are my friends. No, that's not quite right. They're my family especially Eppy and Angie and Skaro is my home. I can't . . . I won't let whoever's behind this overrun and destroy what's left of it. I'm not running from this. I'm going to show them that I can't be bullied or intimidated. In fact, all that they've done is to make me very, very angry instead by using parts of me to attack the people and planet that I love. I'm not about to let them get away with it either. Understand now?" Oswin asked.
John nodded as he said, "I'm staying too then because you're going to need some back-up."
"My thoughts exactly," Marissa said.
Oswin looked at her intently now as she said, "You don't understand, Mari. None of you do. Not really. This is going to become a siege because I have a feeling that whoever sent the other Claras here isn't going to give up easily. They want Skaro out of commission very, very badly for some reason. Once this fight really gets started I'm not sure that anyone's going to be able to leave safely. I really think that I'm going to have to put this entire planet into lockdown and surround it with a force field so that no one else can come here to attack us. You can't stay here. You have a family to look after back home."
Marissa nodded as the horrified look on her face told Oswin that she finally understood why Oswin was trying to get them to leave at last. Oswin could see that Molly looked torn between wanting to stay to help out and being completed terrified of being stranded there forever in a war that might never end.
"What about your role as the Gold Guardian?" Cydonia asked.
"I'm giving that over completely to you for now. You're going to have to take care of things for me while I'm busy here, okay?" Oswin said as her eyes briefly glowed while she transferred what was left of the power of the Gold Guardian to Cydonia.
Cydonia nodded with a tearful look in her eyes as she said, "You take care of yourself and the baby, okay? Don't you let anything happen to her, alright?"
"I won't. Don't you let anything happen to Gran while I'm gone either, okay? You and Clara take care of her for me. I expect her to still be just as sassy and full of spirit as ever when I come back. Got it?" Oswin said as she too teared up now.
"Yes, Boss!" Cydonia said as she hugged Oswin tightly.
"Clara, I'm sorry but I can't . . . I can't . . ." Molly said in an extremely upset voice.
"It's alright, Molly. I understand. I really do," Oswin said as she hugged her next.
"If you need me, don't hesitate to call me," Marissa said to Oswin as she hugged her last.
"Good bye, Mari," Oswin said as a torrent of tears streamed down her face now.
"You come back. Are you listening? You come back!" Marissa insisted.
"I will. I promise. You know that nothing can keep me down for long, Mari," Oswin said with a confident look on her face that both of them knew was just a lie.
"Please come back," Marissa whispered to her in a terrified voice as they embraced one last time.
Then with one last reluctant look on her face, she took Cydonia and Molly with her and finally left Skaro behind in her TARDIS.
"Come on. Let's take Melody where she'll be safe," Oswin said to John afterwards.
"You are coming back to see me though, right?" Melody asked hopefully.
"Of course I am, sweetie. Don't you worry about that for a minute. Aunt Mari was just being overly emotional," Oswin reassured her.
"Yeah," Melody said clearly not believing her but pretending to for her sake.
They they dropped her off with a very surprised Amy and Rory and made them all promises that she would come back later. She had no idea if she would be able to or not of course.
She wasn't certain about anything anymore.
As soon as they returned to Skaro, Oswin said, "This is your last chance, John. Are you still staying?"
"You know I am," John said just before he gave her a passionate kiss.
She smiled at him with a mixture of both pride and worry in her heart as she said, "Alright then. Well, I guess this is it. There's no going back now."
They both returned to Kaalann just as the attacks against the planet by the Claras began to intensify more and more by the moment. Oswin could already tell that there were more of them there than there were before. Far too many perhaps for even the combined might of the Daleks and the Thals together to handle as they started actually blotting out the sun through their sheer numbers and plunging the entire planet into endless darkness. It seemed that Oswin's initial instincts had been right.
This was going to be a siege after all.
"Report," Oswin said to Epsilon as soon as she arrived in the Capitol.
"AS YOU THEORIZED, EMPRESS, THESE ARE ALL OF THE DEAD ECHOES OF CLARA OSWALD WHO HAVE BEEN BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE SOMEHOW. OUR SENSORS HAVE CONFIRMED THIS. THEY HAVE ALSO CONFIRMED THAT THEY ARE NO LONGER COMPLETELY ORGANIC BEINGS. THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN ANDROID BODIES THAT ARE HALF HUMAN AND HALF MACHINE NOW AND THAT ARE FILLED WITH DEADLY WEAPONS. THERE ARE FAR TOO MANY OF THEM TO SIMPLY BELONG TO THIS UNIVERSE ALONE HOWEVER," Epsilon said.
"What do you mean by that?" Oswin asked in surprise.
It was Angela who spoke now as she said, "We have determined that several of the Claras are exact duplicates of one another, Empress."
"Well, of course they're duplicates. They're all Clara," Oswin said not understanding what they were getting at.
"No, that's not what I mean. Many of them are copies of the same echo who come from the same time zone and the same world. We knew this for certain when we spotted several versions of not only Nina Montague, Clara's governess echo, but also of Oswin Oswald," Angela said.
"You mean that there are other Oswins out there?" Oswin asked in disbelief.
"Yes. These aren't just the echoes of this universe's Clara, Empress. They're also the dead echoes of every Clara in every universe who ever jumped into the Doctor's timestream and fragmented themselves in order to save him," Angela said.
Oswin's eyes bulged out in disbelief as she said, "There could be billions even trillions of them then. There could be more of them than there are of us."
"EASILY," Epsilon answered without hesitation.
"Shut down the planet. Put up our strongest force field around it and don't open it again until the Claras have been defeated," Oswin ordered.
"WE OBEY," Epsilon said.
"That may not be enough to stop them from getting in," John observed as he saw the Claras cutting through even the strongest of Skaro's defenses with ease.
"You're right," Oswin realized as she saw this for herself.
"I'm really going to have to do this then. I hope that this works. Eppy, don't put up the force field just yet. Is the Psychic Amplifier ready to use now?" Oswin asked.
"YES, EMPRESS. IT'S READY WHENEVER YOU ARE," Epsilon confirmed.
"The what?" John asked in confusion.
"It's a device that Davros built for me to help increase the power of my brain. I asked him for it to help me with getting my powers jumpstarted. I was a little hesitant to use it up until now because I didn't want to tamper with my mind, but I guess I really don't have any other choice now, do I?" Oswin said with a sigh.
"Of course you do. We don't know what this will do to you, Clara. Let's try to come up with something else first. Please just put this off," John said.
"Ordinarily I'd agree with you, sweetheart, but we need all of the help that we can get here. I've got to contact the other still living Clara echoes and get them to come here as soon as possible. We need their help and I can't contact them without having my mind augmented I'm afraid. I just hope that I'm not rewriting history by doing this," Oswin said.
"Who cares about history, Clara? I just hope that you're not killing yourself and the baby by doing this. Why don't you just wait?" John pleaded.
"Empress, I advise listening to him. I have another plan in mind that may give us the extra soldiers that we need in a different way," Angela said.
"Really? What's that?" Oswin asked intrigued.
Angela smiled as she said, "Well, you know how I've been practicing creating copies of myself, right?"
"Yeah, but they only last for a little while. They always vanish in a few minutes, right?" Oswin said.
"Up until now, yes, but that's because I never tried making them permanent before. Now I'm finally going to do that. I'm going to clone an entire army of myself to defend Skaro against these invaders . . . with your permission of course," Angela said.
"Angie, are you sure about this? It might do something to you to copy yourself that many times especially if you make them all permanent. You've never done it before so how do you know that it wouldn't?" Oswin said with a worried look on her face.
"WE HAVE BEEN STUDYING HER BIOLOGY FOR SOME TIME NOW, EMPRESS. WE HAVE DISCOVERED THAT IN ADDITION TO BEING ABLE TO REPRODUCE WITH A MEMBER OF ANOTHER SPECIES THAT SHE CAN ALSO REPRODUCE ASEXUALLY AS WELL BY CREATING EXACT DUPLICATES OF HERSELF. THESE DUPLICATES WILL BE EXACTLY LIKE HER IN EVERY WAY WITH ALL OF HER MEMORIES AND EMOTIONAL TIES. THEY WILL BE A READY MADE ARMY THAT ARE COMPLETELY LOYAL TO YOU AND READY TO FIGHT FOR SKARO FROM THE START," Epsilon said.
"So you'll be just like the Sontarans then except that you'll be cloning yourself. You'll be starting your own species," Oswin said in awe.
Angela smiled proudly as she said, "It seems that Father Davros really wanted to make sure that my species survived."
"So you're creating a whole new species, eh? My father did that once. Well, he will do it anyway when the Face of Boe gives birth in the far future," John said with a grin.
"Did I ever tell you that your family is weird, John?" Oswin joked.
"We're weird?! This from the woman who has about eight billion copies of herself scattered throughout all of time and space?" John shot back with a grin.
Then the entire area shook from yet another massive attack which caused Angela to say, "It looks like I'm about to find out how that feels, Clara."
"Angie, are you sure about this? If you do this, there's no going back," Oswin warned.
"I'm sure. Don't worry. I'm okay with this. It's long past time that I did my part to help defend my home. Let the Legna come forth," Angela said as she began to start duplicating herself.
As Oswin watched in disbelief, Angela continued to rapidly clone herself over and over again. Each new clone looked exactly like her except that their hair and eye color was a slightly different tint from the original's. At least they would always know who the original was anyway Oswin thought to herself.
The Legna now rapidly made their way out of the Capitol and entered the war with a vengeance as they directly confronted the army of android Claras right alongside the Daleks and Thal soldiers. All three races joined forces to defend Skaro while Clara watched them with pride.
The Legna quickly proved themselves to be extremely formidable as they tore apart one Clara after another with a single blast of energy or a well-placed punch. The Legna seemed to finally be turning the tide at last as they left Skaro littered with several broken and battered android bodies in a matter of moments.
It soon became clear though that even this was not enough as even when the Claras' bodies were destroyed they seemed to almost instantly fix and repair themselves. According to Epsilon, they were filled to the brim with fast acting nanotech that kept them from being permanently destroyed except by an attack that would completely destroy every last part of them. If even a single molecule of their body was left behind, then they would eventually regenerate themselves.
"I have to do this, John. I have to call the other Claras here. It's the only way now," Oswin finally decided.
John nodded and this time he didn't try to dissuade her, but she could see that he was completely terrified for her . . . and the baby.
She swallowed hard now as she attached the device to her head and said, "Wish me luck."
"I'm going to make a wish on every star in every universe," John insisted.
Then she smiled at him and said, "It's going to be okay. I promise."
"Liar," John said with a small smile.
"Well, you could at least pretend to believe me," Oswin said with a snort.
Then they both became serious as they gave each other one last kiss before Oswin finally switched the Psychic Amplifier on. Oswin smiled at him bravely as she could feel the device already amplifying her thoughts.
She slowly reached out with her mind and tried to contact every Clara everywhere throughout all of time and space and every universe. At first she seemed to be succeeding as she could feel herself actually touching their minds. Then she quickly realized that contacting so many different minds at once, even if they were all essentially the same mind, was far too overwhelming for her.
"No! It's too much! I can't . . . I can't do it! I'm sorry! I . . ." Oswin screamed before immediately passing out from the enormous psychic feedback that resulted.
"Clara!" John shouted as he caught her before she hit the ground.
"SCAN THE EMPRESS' BODY. ANALYZE," Epsilon ordered as several Daleks immediately took her to a medical table.
After several minutes, John finally exploded when the Daleks refused to say anything to him as he shouted, "Well, speak up, you stupid pepper pots! Is she going to be alright or what?"
Epsilon turned his eyestalk to look at him in what even he thought was a sympathetic fashion as the Dalek said, "THE BABY WILL BE FINE. SHE IS UNHARMED. THE EMPRESS' BODY IS UNHARMED AS WELL. IT CONTINUES TO FUNCTION NORMALLY. HER MIND HOWEVER . . ."
The Dalek stopped right there and didn't finish his sentence. John knew right away what that meant.
He began to choke as his throat constricted together tightly, and Angela immediately put her arms around him in sympathy. She held him even as he struggled to ask Epsilon to finish that sentence.
The words wouldn't come out though.
"Tell him," Angela finally said to Epsilon.
"THE EMPRESS' MIND HAS GONE COMPLETELY CATATONIC, AND WE CAN'T BRING HER OUT OF THAT STATE. SHE MAY COME OUT OF IT ALL BY HERSELF HOWEVER . . . EVENTUALLY," Epsilon said.
"Until then as the Empress wished in case something ever happened to her, I will now officially become the new acting Empress of Skaro. Epsilon, put the force field up and seal off the planet. No one gets in or out," Angela ordered.
"I OBEY," Epsilon said.
Angela noticed that he didn't call her Empress however. She didn't mind it though. There was only one true Empress of Skaro, and it could never be her.
"Clara," John said as he broke down in Angela's arms.
"It's going to be alright, John. I know it is. I have faith in her. She'll survive this somehow," Angela reassured him as she gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek.
Even the force field couldn't keep the Claras out however. They still broke through even that as they continued to arrive on Skaro in ever greater numbers while the days passed by. Finally Angela became so desperate that she ordered that Skaro be put into a Time Lock in order to ensure that no one else could come there.
Missy observed this with a smile of triumph from the Nethersphere as she said, "Finally. Now Oswin and the Daleks are being kept too busy to enter the battle on Rose's side. That's one less ally to worry about. Skaro and Oswin are both finished. Now this is something very, very nice indeed, isn't it?"
"Yes, but I wouldn't count Oswin out yet. We Claras don't give up that easily. We're very stubborn when we want to be," The Matriarch warned.
"She's been turned into a vegetable now. Even you have to admit that she's finished by this point," Nightshade said with a snort.
"Yeah, maybe," The Matriarch said still unconvinced.
She knew that if history hadn't been altered that this would have been around the time that she had always estimated that . . . but no, Nightshade was probably right. They had changed things far too much now.
Oswin was gone forever this time.
More time passed as Skaro continued to fight for its life within the Time Lock, and the Guardians fell before Nightshade as she stripped the powers away from all of them except for Rose and Jenny. Rose was now forced to seek help against the threat of Missy and Nightshade from the other universes much as Oswin had tried to do.
Little did either side in the coming battle know though that Skaro was far from being counted out of the fight just yet however. Even as both sides prepared to fight their final battle with one another, Skaro finally left the Time Lock at last.
A fleet composed of both Dalek and Thal ships now left the newly freed Skaro and at its head was the Empress' main battleship. Onboard that ship, the Empress of the Daleks now gave out what she knew might be one of if not the most important order of her life.
"Warriors of Skaro, there is a storm coming that threatens to sweep across the entire universe just as it almost did to Skaro. Are we going to let that happen?" The newly revitalized Oswin Oswald said to Skaro's main fleet with a smile.
She was instantly greeted with several shouts of 'No!' from the Daleks, the Thals, and the Legna. She smiled as she could hear that they were all filled with hope now that she had returned.
"That's what I thought you'd say. It's time to show them why it's never a good idea to mess with us. Come on. Let's go save the universe!" Oswin commanded.
Then she turned to wink at John as she said, "I bet no one ever thought that the Daleks would save the universe, huh?"
"EXTERMINATE THEM! EXTERMINATE THEM! EXTERMINATE THEM!" The Daleks started to chant.
"Okay, that's making me more than a little bit nervous, but I suppose I can understand why they're saying it after everything that we've just been through over the last two weeks. What I still don't understand is what happened to you, Clara. How did you come back from being effectively brain dead and completely stop the other Claras in their tracks like that when nothing else would?" John asked.
Oswin's eyes briefly glowed with psychic energy as she said, "The helmet worked after all, John. It just took a while for my brain to recover from it. Now though my abilities have finally been jumpstarted at last and I can call on the abilities and strength of the other Claras when I really need them. It'll still take me a while to completely learn how to use these new abilities but I've learned just enough to reach into the minds of the dead Claras and return them back to normal once again. They immediately realized that they were being used thanks to that and decided to side with us. Now let's see how Missy likes it when they're on our side."
"I can't wait to see the look on her face myself when her own army shows up to fight against her," John said with a chuckle.
They both looked back now to see a mass army of android Claras trailing behind the battle fleet of Skaro as they proceeded through space together. They were all traveling as fast as they could now to help Rose as she made her final stand against Nightshade. Nightshade would never even know what hit her as the entire might of Skaro was directed against her.
Even that would prove to not be enough however.
Next: The aftermath of the final battle with Nightshade and how it affects Skaro will be explored in the next chapter as several changes are brought about as a result of it. How will these events affect Oswin and the rest of our supporting cast?