CHAPTER 64

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EMPIRE'S END

"Fall back!" Oswin shouted as deadly energy blasts criss-crossed the entire area and came far too close for comfort to her several times.

"PROTECT THE EMPRESS!" Epsilon ordered as he and the other Daleks immediately formed a protective barrier between Oswin, John, and Abby and the forces of the Brethren with their own bodies.

The Mentor laughed as she said, "That won't help you, Empress. You've only delayed your death by the amount of time that it takes my new allies to burn their way through your Daleks' outer shells. Soon you and your entire group will be nothing but scattered atoms floating through the atmosphere. Nothing can stop that now. You will die and then justice will finally be done at last. The final judgment of the Mentor can never be denied for long. Not even by you. There is no escape."

"Okay, Gran, this is getting serious. I want you to use your Emergency Temporal Shift and get out of here right now. You go with her, John," Oswin said in a worried voice as she began to hear several Daleks cry out in pain.

"I'M AFRAID THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE, EMPRESS. EITHER THE MENTOR OR THE BRETHREN HAVE ESTABLISHED A TRANSDUCTION BARRIER THAT PREVENTS US FROM USING ANY KIND OF TEMPORAL TECHNOLOGY OR TELEPORTATION TO LEAVE AT THE MOMENT," Daphne said.

"That's just as well because I wasn't going anywhere anyway. There's no way that I'd ever just walk off and abandon you, Clara. There's no use in even asking me," Abby said in a stubborn tone.

Oswin already knew from a lifetime of experience that this meant that her mind was already made up, and she was never going to back down no matter what. It was one of the many traits that she had inherited from her herself.

"That goes triple for me, Clara. Besides I can't die anyway so what are you worried about me for? It's me that should be worried about you," John said with a grin.

"I'd be more worried about the Mentor instead when I get my hands on whatever she has for a neck," Oswin said as she tried to sound brave despite the overwhelming sense of doom that she was already beginning to feel at that moment.

"NONE OF YOU WILL DIE, EMPRESS. I GIVE YOU MY WORD ON THAT," Daphne said instantly as though she could read her thoughts.

Oswin smiled as she said, "Thanks, Daph. I just hope that the events of this day don't make you into a liar before everything's all said and done."

Oswin couldn't help but notice that Daphne was the only Dalek not currently involved in the fighting at the moment despite Epsilon's order. The only reason that she could think of for her performing such a distinctly unDalek like act was that she was deliberately disobeying orders in order to stay close to Oswin so that she could protect her personally if/when the others fell.

She was fully prepared to buy Oswin an extra few minutes to live by sacrificing her own life if necessary.

Oswin couldn't help but briefly smile at that even though she desperately hoped that Daphne would never have to wind up dying in order for her to survive. Yet another Dalek had just thought for themselves.

"What about the rest of our forces? Can they get to us soon or have they already been evacuated?" Oswin asked with a sympathetic wince as she heard several explosions nearby that she knew involved her Daleks.

"WE STILL HAVE A SMALL GROUP THAT HASN'T RETREATED YET, BUT THEY'RE MUCH TOO FAR AWAY TO REACH US IN TIME. CURRENT ESTIMATES SHOW THAT ALL OF THE DALEKS HERE WILL BE LONG DEAD BEFORE THEY GET HERE. THERE IS A SMALL CHANCE THAT YOU MAY SURVIVE UNTIL THEN HOWEVER," Daphne said.

"We're all going to survive, Daph, if I have anything to say about it," Oswin said in an obstinate tone.

"YOUR SENTIMENT IS GREATLY APPRECIATED, EMPRESS, BUT HIGHLY UNLIKELY GOING BY ALL CURRENT AVAILABLE DATA," Daphne said.

Oswin frowned as she said, "Can we even get in touch with the other Daleks at all? I'd like to know if they've located the transduction barrier's generator or not. If they could just take that out . . ."

"ALL INCOMING AND OUTCOMING TRANSMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY BEING JAMMED," Daphne quickly interrupted her.

"Well, that's just wonderful. So I have absolutely no idea what my boys are even up to and no way to find out. You know it's times like this that I really wish that I had stayed a Guardian. I am so not amused right now," Oswin said with a frown.

"Who are you, Queen Victoria?" John asked with a grin as he desperately tried to take her mind off of the seriousness of the situation.

"No, but you're close," Oswin said with a mischievous smile.

"Huh?" John said with a look of complete confusion.

"I'm not sure but I think that she may have actually been one of Clara's echoes who prevented the Doctor from being bitten by a werewolf. At least I think that's what she told me once anyway. I'll have to ask her about it sometime . . . if there still is a sometime to ask her in that is," Oswin said as she winced once again when she heard several Daleks suddenly cry out in fear at once.

"I'm pretty sure that you must have heard that wrong, Clara. My Dad actually met her once and I really think he would have mentioned something like that if that was the case," John said in a distracted tone as he desperately tried to keep her mind focused on anything but the present at that moment.

"Maybe he just didn't recognize her as a Clara because she was older," Oswin pointed out.

"Does any of this really matter right now? I could really care less about having a bloody history lesson right now, kids! The only history that I care about at the moment is ours," Abby suddenly asked in an irritated voice.

"Now I see where you get your temper from," John said with a frown.

"Sorry," Abby immediately said in an apologetic tone.

"It's okay, Gran. We're all on edge right now," Oswin said in a quivering voice as she suddenly heard several more agonizing Dalek screams coming from far too close to her at that moment.

Then when she heard what sounded way too much like the sound of several Daleks dying in a single instance, she finally lost her temper at last as she said in an emotional voice filled with anger, "Okay, that's it! I can't just stand by and listen to this anymore!"

"EMPRESS, DON'T!" Daphne shouted as Oswin immediately began to walk towards the front lines of the battle.

"They're killing my Daleks, Daph. I can't just stand here and watch them die like this. I can't and I won't," Oswin said in tears.

"CLARA . . . PLEASE," Daphne said in a frightened voice that completely shocked Oswin.

Oswin immediately stopped and smiled at an obviously concerned Daphne as she said, "I have to, Daph. You're my family. All of you."

"YES, WE ARE AND THAT'S WHY I MUST DO . . . THIS," Daphne said as she quickly fired a stun blast from her gun stick at Oswin before she could stop her.

"Clara!" John shouted in shock as he immediately caught her limp body before she could hit the ground.

"What did you do?!" Abby said in anger.

"SHE IS ONLY STUNNED. SURELY YOU KNOW THAT I COULD NEVER HARM HER, ABIGAIL OSWALD. NONE OF US COULD. I'M SO SORRY, EMPRESS. PLEASE FORGIVE ME BUT I COULD NEVER LET YOU DIE. I . . . I . . ." Daphne said as she struggled to speak the three words that were still completely alien to all Daleks even Oswin's.

She couldn't think of any three words that better expressed how she felt at that moment though.

Abby placed her hand on Daphne's casing and smiled at her with all traces of her former anger completely gone now as she said, "You don't have to say it. She knows, Daphne. She knows and so do I. She feels exactly the same way about all of you. Believe me."

"This is pathetic. Daleks that feel love and affection? Daleks don't need such things. Such emotions are as superfluous and unnecessary as the mindless hatred of the previous group of Daleks that I encountered from your reality. Such feelings only get in the way of true justice," The Mentor said with disdain as she suddenly appeared nearby from out of nowhere.

"GET BEHIND ME!" Daphne shouted to Abby as she quickly trained her gun stick on the Mentor and prepared to fire.

Long before she could, however, the Mentor immediately fired a powerful blast of energy at her that blew the entire top of her casing off as she said, "Like I said, pathetic."

"She's more human than you'll ever be," Abby said as she fired multiple blasts from her gauntlets at the Mentor even as she desperately hoped that Daphne was okay.

The blasts bounced harmlessly off of the Mentor's force field as she said, "Why should that be of any concern to me? One does not need to be human to enact justice only completely impartial."

She now trained her weapon on Abby next as she said, "You have been charged with interfering with a legal execution. You have been judged accordingly and the sentence is . . . death."

Then she fired a lethal burst of energy straight at Abby's head. Just before it could reach her, however, John immediately leapt in its way and took the blast in her place.

As he crumpled to the ground in a lifeless heap, the Mentor laughed and said, "Fool! He was only delaying the inevitable I'm afraid. It's of no matter though. I was actually going to do that to him anyway for the earlier indecency charge. It just saves me the trouble. Now it's time to finally finish your sentence."

"Justice without compassion and a sense of mercy isn't justice at all. You're a monster. You're more a monster than any Dalek could ever even hope to be," Abby said as she bravely stood before the Mentor without flinching as she aimed her gun at her once more.

"No, I'm merely doing my duty in the name of real justice. There will be absolutely no tolerance for any sort of breach of the law of any sort as long as I'm alive," The Mentor said as her weapon began to glow.

"Good to know," A voice said behind her.

"What?" The Mentor cried out in surprise.

Then she suddenly screamed in agony as she was completely blown apart from behind!

As what was left of the Mentor burnt to cinders in front of her, Oswin looked on grimly as she said, "That was for my Daleks. Justice is served, you crazy loon."

"You really are like the Doctor now aren't you?" Abby said with a sad look.

"I didn't enjoy that, Gran, despite how it might have looked. She was never going to stop though, and I wasn't about to let her kill you. I had to strike from behind while I still could while she was so busy focusing on you. Luckily for me she was so full of herself that she never even thought to protect her back from someone who she thought was still completely unconscious. I heal much quicker than most people though thanks to the extra abilities I receive from the echoes," Oswin said as she silently checked John to see if he was alright and smiled to herself as she saw that he was already slowly beginning to breathe once more.

"Clara, do you think that Daphne is . . . ?" Abby asked without being able to finish the question.

Oswin slowly walked up to the Dalek and then peered inside of the still smoking remnants of her shell. She wasn't sure that she actually wanted to see what she might find there but she forced herself to anyway.

Then she began to smile as she saw a single unblinking eye looking up at her with a dazed look. Daphne was alive! She had been completely stunned but she was otherwise okay Oswin confirmed with her gauntlets' bioscanner.

"She's going to be alright. She's a tough girl just like me," Oswin said proudly.

"You mean she has a thick skull just like you, right?" John asked from the ground.

"Welcome back, Immortal Boy. It's good to see you up and about again. You're getting a little slow in your returns from the dead though. Last time's was much quicker," Oswin teased him.

"I'll work on it. Are you okay?" John asked with concern.

"That depends," Oswin said as she looked behind him with a growing look of panic in her eyes.

"On what?" John asked in confusion.

"On whether I can take all of them down or not before one of them scores a lucky shot," Oswin said as she began to power up her gauntlets.

John sighed as he now turned to see a dozen or more Time Lords from the Brethren standing there with their stasers drawn and trained right on Oswin. Some of them had finally managed to successfully make it through the Dalek lines despite the fact that the fight was still ongoing at full force nearby.

"This is the end, Oswin Oswald. You fought well but there was truly never any other way that this battle could go. You were always destined to die this day though at the order of Lord Erebus. Long live . . . !" One of the Brethren said as he began to pull the trigger on his staser.

He was suddenly interrupted by an enormous explosion somewhere nearby that violently rocked the entire area. Oswin instantly smiled because she could instinctively feel that the generator to the transduction barrier had just been blown.

"What?!" One of the Brethren shouted in shock.

"Good work, boys!" Oswin said with pride.

Her guess was proven to be absolutely correct a moment later as she heard a very welcome voice.

"Yeah, yeah. Blah blah blah. Erebus is great. Erebus is good. Erebus is a real cool dude who has monkeys flying out of his butt. That's quickly followed up by the same old threats that you've heard about a billion times before but done so much better the first time around. Same old, same old. Meh meh meh meh," The voice of Clara Oswald said from out of nowhere as she suddenly stunned all of the Brethren assassins from behind with a single blast of energy.

Oswin smiled as she watched the renegade Time Lords fall flat on their faces in front of her. As soon as they did, she saw that Clara, Rose, and the Matriarch had been standing directly behind them.

"He has monkeys flying out of his butt? Really?" Oswin asked Clara in amusement.

"Eh. It sounded good at the time," Clara said with a chuckle.

Then her eyes widened in surprise as she finally saw Abby behind Oswin at last and she said to the Matriarch, "Oh, my stars! You really weren't kidding when you said that you made her young again. She looks like one of my kids."

"Oi! I'm not that young!" Abby said indignantly.

"You could have fooled me, Little Gran," Clara teased.

"Are you really going to start calling her that? She's still taller than you are. Maybe she should be calling you Little Clara," John noted with an evil smile as Abby burst out laughing.

"Watch it with the height cracks, Immortal Boy," Oswin warned as both Claras gave him an angry look at once.

Then Oswin looked at the Matriarch in alarm as she said, "Where's the baby? Don't even think about telling me that you left her all alone."

The Matriarch rolled her eyes as she said, "Relax. She's with Dad. You know you're much too tense. You need to learn to relax more."

"I wonder why? Wait a minute! Dad? Does that mean that he saw you? He knows who you are?" Oswin asked in a worried tone.

"Not exactly. I told him she was you. Sorry about that. I'm just not sure he's ready for the truth about her yet. It's much too complicated. I thought it might blow his mind," Clara answered.

"Yeah, sorry, Ozzie, but I really wasn't looking forward to saying 'I used to be the dark side of your daughter who almost destroyed the universe. Nice to meet you.' " The Matriarch said with a grimace.

"Just wait till he sees me. Then his mind really will be blown," Abby said with a frown.

"Don't worry about it, Gran. I'll return you to normal as soon as all of this is over. I promise," The Matriarch said.

"Well, maybe I'm not so sure I want to be old again even despite all of the trouble that it'll cause. My Claras obviously need all of the help that they can get," Abby said in an uncertain voice.

"You can't be serious," Clara said in disbelief.

"I think she is," Oswin said.

"We'll talk about this later when we're not all in deadly danger, okay? Just leave Gran alone for now," The Matriarch said protectively causing Abby to smile at her.

She really was her Clara after all.

Rose meanwhile ignored all of this as she watched the still ongoing battle between the remaining Brethren and the Daleks off in the distance. The others were more than convinced that they were safe now because the Daleks finally appeared to have gained the upper hand at last thanks to the Mentor's Daleks having been thrown into complete disarray by the sudden death of their leader and the rapidly dwindling numbers of the Brethren. It helped that there was a rapidly growing numbers of Daleks returning to the fight with the barrier down now.

They were wrong though. She could feel that because she could still sense Erebus' presence there somewhere nearby. He was still up to something. She was sure of it.

Then she suddenly watched in horror as the unconscious Brethren members that Clara had knocked out before slowly got back up on their feet behind a completely unsuspecting Oswin and company and began to aim their guns at her once more. Only this time they had a dull, distant look in their eyes that proved that they were still quite unconscious.

Rose knew immediately that they were now under the control of Erebus. He was somehow animating them all like puppets despite the fact that he was still somewhere deep within the Void.

"Clara, look out!" Rose screamed as she quickly tried to throw up a hastily erected force field in front of Oswin.

Even as she did so, however, she already knew that it would go up far too late to save her though.

"EXTERMINATE!" Daphne shouted from behind as she immediately disintegrated all of the attacking Brethren in a single instant.

Somewhere in the Void, Erebus screeched in pain as the resulting psychic backlash temporarily stunned him and rendered him completely senseless.

Then Daphne began to make a mournful sound as she said, "I'M SO SORRY, EMPRESS. I HAD TO DO IT. I HAD TO."

Oswin immediately walked up to her and gave her a sympathetic look as she said, "I know, Daph. It's okay."

Then she took Daphne out of what was left of her casing and held her in her arms as she said in a gentle voice, "Sometimes we have no other choice. That doesn't mean that we have to like it though. That's the biggest difference between the old Daleks and mine I suppose."

"Told you you'd be proud of her," Rose said in a low voice as she smiled at the scene before her.

"Who are you talking to, Blondie?" Oswin asked as she overheard this.

Clara smiled now as she said, "She's talking to Mum."

"What?" Oswin said in shock.

"What do you mean she's talking to your mother?" Abby said in disbelief.

"It turns out that there's a connection between Rose and Mum, Gran," Clara said as she immediately explained the whole story to her, Oswin, and John.

Oswin's jaw dropped by the end of her explanation as she said to Rose in an upset voice, "S – So you can actually talk to her?"

"Yeah," Rose admitted in a nervous voice.

"I can't believe it. This is out there even for the Doctor," Abby said in amazement.

"Dad would probably say it wasn't too out there for Rose though," John said with a grin.

"I bet he would," Rose said with an uncertain smile on her face.

Oswin could instantly tell that Rose felt so guilty that Ellie wasn't there. It was obvious that she was doing her best to make that up to her wherever she was now but wasn't quite sure how or if she ever truly could or not.

"C – Can we? Talk to her I mean. Is there any way that we can hear her too?" Oswin asked in a hopeful tone.

"That's what we'd all like to know. She was just about to tell us when she sensed you were in danger and brought us all here. So what's the verdict, Bad Wolf Girl?" Clara said impatiently as she once again felt an undeniable longing in her own heart at that moment to talk to her mother.

Rose took a deep breath before she finally said, "This will only work a little while, but it's better than nothing, yeah? It's not quite the same as talking to her in person, but I suppose it'll have to do. Just don't get too upset when she has to go back, okay?"

"What are you talking about?" Oswin asked.

Then she suddenly saw a complete change come over Rose's features, and it was as if she was suddenly an entirely different person. That's when she knew.

"Mum?" Oswin asked in a soft voice.

"My sweet Clara. Oh, my sweet Clara. I've missed you so much. I've missed all of you," Ellie Oswald said in Rose's voice as she wrapped her arms around Oswin in a loving embrace while looking at Clara and the Matriarch with eyes filled with joy.

All three Claras began to openly weep now as their mother finally began to speak to them for the first time in years. They never even noticed when the Daleks finally won the battle against the Brethren at last somewhere in the distance.

And somewhere far in the Void, Erebus screamed in impotent rage as he realized that he had lost yet another battle against Rose Tyler and her allies that could have proven instrumental in his quest to return home once more. Still the overall war against her continued though, and it was far from over.

One day despite everything that had happened here today he would return, and on that day even the Web of Time itself would shatter before him.

Next: Ellie Oswald finally speaks to her Claras at long last. What will she say to them? Plus what will happen to the Mentor's empire now that she's gone? Oh, and Abby finally resolves the issue of whether she'll stay young or not. I wonder what she'll choose and how poor old Dave will react if she stays that way.