Authors notes: Just a short chapter this time to set things up and round off the characters and their conflicting beliefs. Plus, a flashback to further explain why Raven thinks the way she does.

Just before we delve into this chapter, I want to stress that the central theme of this arc is not about politics, nor do I want it to be political propaganda, all that is just a backdrop to inform the characters. But their own politics says nothing about their actual character, but in life some will talk about their politics as if it somehow makes them a better person. Anyone who's ever been in a political debate will know that, that is not always true.

The arc is more about the dangers of closed mindedness, about group think vs the thoughts of the individual, demanding conformity. Content of character, and judgement by mob rule. It's about working together to fight real bad guys, while another faction seeks to drive a wedge between you and potential allies to stop you from seeing the true source of the worlds problems.

Please keep this in mind as you read the chapter, and I hope it comes off the way it's supposed to.

Chapter 86

Strings Attached?

It was nice, the peace, not having Hedgy around. Raven thought to herself as she tried to manoeuvre herself into a comfortable position.

"What did they want with the Dalek fan boy, I wonder?" Ace said to herself. A Dalek had come for Hedgy specifically. What the Daleks could possibly want with him Raven didn't know. Hopefully they'd exterminate him.

Maybe that was a little unfair, Raven considered, after all just because Hedgy acted like and thought like the old Mistress of the Land of Fiction, he wasn't the Mistress, and he wasn't guilty of her crimes, nor was he responsible for what she'd tried to do to Raven. They just shared an unpleasant ideology that obsessed and delighted in finding bad guys to fight. Okay, that was a very simplistic view of the ideology. But it was the only part of the ideology that Raven cared about.

If there was one thing Raven hated, it was Witch Hunters, especially Witch Hunters who've ran out of Witches to burn, and start burning people with warts on their faces to sate their 'hobby'.

"Eye-spy, with my little eye, something beginning with…" Ace said, looking around. "M."

Raven's eyes rolled to look at Ace from under her hood.

"Come on, Sunshine, something beginning with M."

Moron? Raven's mind suggested. Looking around it was obvious what it was. "Metal?"

"Yeah, you're go." Ace shrugged, motioning for Raven to go next. The goth girl sighed and looked around the room.

"Eye-spy, with my bored eye. Something beginning with S." There was nothing in the room that begins with S, as far as Raven was aware, she just hoped Ace would be quiet.

"Shine?"

"No."

"Steel?"

"No"

"Okay, I give up."

Raven put a finger to her lips and went "Shhhhhh!"

"Right little princess, aren't you?" Ace said acidically. Raven kind of admired how Ace could be so calm in this situation.

"Aren't you scared?" Raven eventually asked her. Even she was getting a little tired of the silence.

"Not really." Ace shrugged, "Are you?" Raven ignored the question.

"Why?" Either Ace was very brave or utterly foolish.

"I've been in worse situations like this before. Getting captured comes with the territory. It's the art of escape where the spice is." Ace said with a smile.

"And you got all this from journalism school?" Raven asked.

"Nah, they don't teach you this stuff." Ace started to look a little coy. "I used to travel around with this geezer. We'd always get into trouble like this and we'd bail each other out." It sounded like Raven's relationship with the Doctor. "He was an almighty know it all, and a genius brain-box. I used to call him the Professor just to wind him up."

Raven wanted to speak. She wanted to say 'I travel around with some guy too. Through space and time. And I like to 'wind him up' too.' But Raven didn't say that. She didn't feel like bonding with this total stranger. No matter how alike they sounded. Clearly this 'Professor' character wasn't with Ace anymore. "What happened to him?" Raven asked.

Ace got a distant look to her face of days gone by. "We had a falling out. He played me one too many times and... he eventually did something I could not agree with. Some of the pieces he'd sacrifice in his games to get the job done he didn't need to sacrifice."

"He sounds like an asshole." Raven commented. Ace laughed.

"Yeah, he could be a bit." Ace looked down and her face became serious again. "I couldn't fight by his side anymore. I'd always thought it'd never end, it would be Ace and the Professor forever more. But..." Ace sighed, then changed the subject. "So why aren't you scared of these alien, death blobs?"

"Been in worse situations. Comes with the territory." Raven shrugged.

"Really? You never told me what you do?" Ace asked.

"I..." Raven hesitated, what did she do exactly while travelling with the Doctor? "I... I help people." Her thoughts went to Russel, but then snaked off to Barriss, Kasey, Armstrong and so on. "I... make people more comfortable..." Raven looked down and felt herself frown a little more, "before they die."

"And that involves getting locked up by alien death blobs?" Ace asked.

Raven shrugged, "You'd be surprised." Ace must've caught the look in the teens eye that she didn't want to talk anymore because Ace quickly quietened down. So Raven went back to trying to work some feeling back into her body from the Dalek blast. She moved her left arm, it was a struggle. It was like trying to force a rusted hinge to bend, the muscles were clenched so hard. Same with her legs. Her body was slowly relaxing and she was regaining feeling in her toes, it was too bad the feeling was just painful.

Speaking of pain. The door to their cell opened up and the Dalek forced Hedgy into the cell. Raven didn't like that the human man didn't seem to be all that afraid since the Daleks had just interrogated him.

"Oi, what have you done to him!" Ace accused. She could sense something was wrong too.

"WE HAVE DONE NOTHING TO THE HUMAN MALE!" Said the Dalek.

"We've just had a talk." Hedgy said rubbing his wrists, the imprint of the manacles that were holding him down were clear.

"FOOD AND WATER WILL BE PROVIDED FOR YOU." The Dalek announced before it rolled backwards and the door slid shut again.

"What did they want to know?" Ace asked him.

"Who we are, were we came from." Hedgy said, looking up. "What's directly above them."

"You didn't tell them about Safe Harbour?!" Ace asked.

"They already knew. They have cameras set up everywhere." Hedgy said, "They plan to eradicate them all."

"That's Daleks for you." Ace said. "If its different, it's wrong and must be destroyed."

"Safe Harbour shouldn't be here anyway." Hedgy insisted.

"You what?!" Ace asked, astonished.

"This planet belongs to the Daleks. The humans just appropriated it." Hedgy argued.

"Daleks come from Skaro. This isn't their planet either." Ace said, "and they probably committed genocide to get it."

"Don't be so prejudice!" Hedgy said back with a kind of moral smugness.

"Prejudice?"

"Do you know why the Daleks fear everything?" Hedgy asked.

"If by 'fear', you mean, 'hate', then yeah. They think they're better than everyone else." Ace said.

"No, it isn't." Hedgy argued back, "The Daleks fear everything because they were once subjugated on their original planet. They went to war for their freedom. Rather inspiring really."

"And you believe them?!" Ace asked, totally blown away that someone could feel sympathy for the Daleks. "Then you are an idiot. You said you hated the Daleks."

"I hate people who think like Daleks. But though the Daleks are literal Daleks they don't act like Daleks." Hedgy said. Ace looked speechless for a moment. Raven rolled her eyes at the sheer mental gymnastics required in order to reach that conclusion. Did this class as Double-think?

"How in the hell does that make sense?" Ace asked.

"Easy. It's all propaganda by the humans." Hedgy said rolling his eyes as if this was obvious. "The Daleks just want to be free, they're just scared of being oppressed, so they attack everyone."

Silence filled the room and Raven finally decided to speak. "Humans are Daleks because they think like Daleks, but though the Daleks are Daleks, they aren't Daleks because they don't think like Daleks?" Raven said with ridicule, before adding flatly. "You're a genius. A very caring, very rational, genius."

"Some Daleks may have been bad in the past, but does that mean we need to condemn the whole race as evil?" Hedgy asked.

"When that race demands total conformity, obedience, and despise difference and rebellion. Where even a single Dalek with the slight capacity for empathy is exterminated on the spot. Then I'd say, yes, the Dalek species is evil." Ace said.

"You're a bigot!" Hedgy shouted, "Conformity and obedience lead to peace."

"Peace is nothing without freedom!" Ace argued back.

"Freedom allows prejudice." Hedgy insisted, "Freedom just allows humans to control everything!"

Ace was now looking at Hedgy warily. "What did the Daleks do to you?"

"Nothing." Hedgy responded. "We just had a talk. We actually agree on a lot of things. We hate oppression, we just want people to be safe, we hate Human Daleks, we think different aliens can't possibly get on with each other, so they should have their own separate worlds, separate facilities, so they never have to meet and cause each other pain. Then we shall have peace."

Aces jaw dropped. "But wait, isn't that what the 'Hand of Mother Terror' believe? The human supremacist organisation?"

Hedgy looked like he was about to argue, but he instead looked away a little to the right and his eyes narrowed as if this had not occurred to him before. He then returned Aces gaze and said. "But we're doing it with good intentions. Mother Terra do it out of hatred. Understand now?" Hedgy said, making it clear he was talking down to Ace like she was a child who couldn't understand a simple concept. "We're the good guys. They are the bad guys. Get it?"

"Yeah, I think I get it, but I don't think you do." Ace said, eyes narrowed. "You actually are a human supremacist, you just feel guilty about 'being superior'."

"That's a human supremacist thing to say!"

"Exactly, I've summed up what you frickin' believe!" Ace was really worked up.

"You said humans are superior!"

"I was being sarcastic, thick-o!" Raven wanted to raise her fingers to her temples and rub them, all this bickering was giving her a headache.

"Sarcasm. The excuse given when you say something species-ist."

"I'm not the one saying aliens can't measure up to humans if you grant them all freedom."

"How does that make me a human supremacist?"

"Do you not listen to what you say? You pretty much admitted that in a free system humans will always come out on top."

"Because they lie, cheat and steal."

"And aliens aren't capable of that too?"

"I won't listen to these species-ist lies!"

"You are the one insinuating humans are better! You don't see aliens as inferior 'creatures' to be conquered, like Mother Terra does. Nor do you see them as equals, like you should. You see them all as inferior 'children' and you talk about them like a toxic, helicopter parent would their perfect child. That's why you dismiss them when they don't act or behave the way you expect. It's hard to be their white saviour online when they make you look stupid."

Hedgy was about to explode, but Raven wasn't about to let him. She'd had enough of all this noise.

"QUIET!" Raven finally screamed, she'd had enough. She had their silence, and unfortunately now, their attention, which she didn't want. Now she couldn't think of what to say. She just stared at them for a little before hissing. "You are both adults, act like it."

"She started it!" Hedgy said.

"Oi, I'm not the one defending the Daleks!"

"QUIET, I DON'T CARE!" Raven screamed again. "This bickering is pointless, it won't get us out of here."

"They're talking about letting me go." Hedgy said, Raven echoed Ace's eye roll at this guys naivety. "They are."

"You're such a fool." Ace said.

A twitching caught Raven's eye. The Dalek eye stalks were twisting and turning, and observing everything. Raven again felt like a lab rat being watched by some scientist. The eye stalk turned to observe Raven herself, it's cold, blue disk staring into her soul. A creepy feeling came over her.

Did they deliberately put Hedgy back in with them in order to observe how they'd both react to him? If so, what were they gleaming from this?

Through that eye stalk she could somehow sense an intelligence that was taking this all in and was planning. Raven ground her teeth a little. She'd not met the Daleks long and already she was developing a deep... 'wariness,' of them.

She used the term 'wariness' because she didn't want to use the word, 'fear.'

Hedgy and Ace began arguing again.

"QUIET!" Raven shouted again, just adding to her headache. "Five minutes of silence, starting now!" The pair of adults looked at her like a couple of rebellious teenagers who'd been told off. But they took her seriously enough to fall silent.

Peace at last.

Raven leaned back, rested her head against the inside of her hood and just basked in the peace and quiet... for now.

Peace. Quiet, solitude and tranquillity. Call Raven weird but she enjoyed it, being alone. She loved to be by herself, on her own, alone. Other people just complicate her life. When she was with other people she had to think about what to say, consider whether what she said might offend someone, make an effort to smile.

Why did people want company? Why compromise yourself to make someone like you?

But they still hate me, and that hurts.

So what? So what if people hated her? What was she supposed to do, alter what she thought, how she behaved? She didn't hurt anyone, nor did she want to. But it didn't matter who she was underneath. What mattered was how people perceived her, and Raven had trouble communicating herself, and she was certain most people didn't want to understand anyway. People were just so sensitive.

They're not sensitive. They're opportunistic. They just know they'll get attention if they're hurt, or upset, or scared of the big, bad monster. Yes, even if she changed herself completely they'd still hate her just for who she used to be. So why bother trying to change yourself?

They'd expect you to conform to their way of thinking, their way of doing things. But you will never truly be one of them. They'll exchange you like a form of currency. 'Push you under the bus,' as they say, just to gain the attention they wanted.

It was better to be alone. If it came to a choice between her freedom to think freely, and a bunch of people demanding to exchange that freedom just for the privilege of being in someone's company. Then frankly, she'd prefer to be an island.

Her tranquil meditations were spoilt however, when a small voice whispered into her ear. "Witch"

Raven's fingers gently clenched to hold back the frustration going through her. But she held back from lashing out. Master Azar would not like it.

Going back to her meditations and musings again it wasn't long before she heard the same voice whisper into her ear. "Witch"

Raven swallowed and scrunched her eyes up even further to block out what the burning anger deep within her soul wanted to do.

The common curse called puberty had hit Raven and it was messing with her meditations. True, the same process granted her the figure she was developing and it drove those who hated her crazy that nature was being so kind to her, but the down side was that she felt herself becoming increasingly aggressive and moody. "Bitchy" would probably be the word for it. But then Raven had no one to bitch to but herself. Perhaps it was better that way than trying to make her problems someone else's.

That was something else Raven didn't like about people. They tried to make their problems, your problems, and their problems were always so trivial and insignificant, and they'd get angry when you told them that.

"Witch." Came the whisper again.

Raven sighed heavily and opened her eyes a fraction. Just enough to see the scurrying monk running back to his friends behind a bush. They were sniggering and laughing. They wanted her to lash out and be angry. It was a string they were constantly yanking at in the hopes that they could make her do something. They wanted the 'demon' to be bad.

She hated the pats on the back the whisperer was getting. They were all boys and they were positively re-enforcing that hating Raven was a good thing, and that if you did it you'd get a reward.

That was the strange nature of hate. Hate through fear, Raven could understand that and have some sympathy with. People who hate through fear could be reasoned with, though Raven could never be bothered to. But being taught to hate someone as a moral good you were obligated to enact in order to maintain social privileges. Now in Raven's mind, that was true evil. When you're taught that hating someone is entirely morally justified. How can you talk someone out of that kind of hatred? It would be like talking an addict out of taking a drug.

Raven was a 'demon' after all, she was also a 'witch', apparently. She wouldn't be able to convince them otherwise. It was a fact, and it was morally good to hate demons and witches. Unfortunately, when there are none, but you want to prove how much of a moral person you are, what else can you do but invent them out of the nearest approximation?

Another boy was making a move. He move slowly and cautiously like an animal approaching prey. Raven was not scared. He wouldn't try to physically attack her, that would mean he'd lost the moral high ground, especially if someone was watching.

He lent forward and whispered the slur in her ear. "Witch." Then he slowly and calmly walked off. Raven could barely hear his retreating footsteps, but she did feel him fall over when a power that was not her own shoved him down.

"Hey, leave her alone." Called a group of girls who came to chase the boys away from her.

Raven was wary. Similar things had happened one too many times before for her to get her hopes up. The girls approached her and Raven opened her eyes and looked at them with piercing pupils.

"Boys are such a pain aren't they." Said the girl monk. She had a nice looking face, understanding eyes, and a chocolate brown cloak. The girl said her name, but Raven refused to commit it to memory. Raven also refused to thank her. The other girls looked innocent and sweet. Somewhere, in that innocence there was a knife. "We should go after them." The girl suggested. "We should teach them a lesson."

Raven refused to even turn her head to observe them, she just looked at them from the corners of her eyes with a cold, unmoved look. What strings were these girls trying to pluck? They wanted to gain her confidence, build her up, whisper things into her ear and then send her after someone? Using Raven to do their own dirty work, and when Raven was caught the girls would abandon her to her punishment. Afterwards, they'd either try to be buddies with her again in the hopes of winding her up again like a toy and send her after someone else. Or they'd reject her and leave her with a broken heart and broken confidence.

But there was a possibility these girls were sincere.

Raven decided to test this situation. Coldly, Raven stood up and walked away from the girls, ignoring them, testing to see how they'd react.

"Where are you going?" The girls asked in surprise. Raven held up her hand by her head, showing the back of her hand to them in a halting gesture as she continued to walk away. If they acted any differently then maybe… maybe, she'd believe they were sincere.

Wait for it…

"Oh forget you, you creepy little Witch!" They shouted.

And there was the hate. And all it did was re-enforce what Raven already knew.

No matter what she did, no matter how she changed, she was always going to be the 'bad guy.'

Now and forever.

To Be Continued...

Authors notes:

Again, whether you agree or disagree with the politics of this chapter it doesn't matter in the context of the situation they're in. They could work together to fry a bigger fish, but the bigger fish is encouraging them to fight amongst themselves.

I realise there is not a lot of Dalek action going on at the moment. Though the Daleks are powerful, I don't think Raven would truly be terrified of them because they could kill you in a sadistic way. She'd be more terrified of their cunning and the mind games they'd play with people. The true evil of the Daleks is not just their want to exterminate. But they look at other life forms as play things to be experimented on or played with.