Bride of the Necromancer 2-7
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I feel every inch of me freeze, seeing the last thing I'd ever want to see. Right in front of me I see… me, stained with all the marks of Oterne. Her skin is blurred just like one in 'close communion' with Those Above, her whole body flickering in and out. Trying to escape my paralysis I step back, and I see and feel her taking a step back at the same time. "Are you…" I strain to say, before I force out, "You can't be me!"
"What? Vinnie, who are you talking to?" Georgiy asks me, trying to snap me out of it. "I'm right here, and I'm definitely Georgiy. Why'd you ever think I was you?"
"I know that. I mean the girl, whoever's in front of me," I stutter out, pointing forwards right at this doppelganger, only for Georgiy to shake his head.
"It is useless," my duplicate says, in what sounds like my voice but drowned in reverb, "He is too far removed from the salvation Oterne offers." How could she, how could anyone or anything resembling me even say something like that?
"Lavinia, I'm telling you, you gotta be seeing things," Georgiy says, before he remarks, "Though sheesh, that wound the monster lady gave you is seriously acting up." It's for the best that Professor Baskoro isn't around to hear that said about his daughter… even if Georgiy had to run for his life all over this ship because of her.
But I was losing track of the main point. "My wound?" I ask, reaching out to touch it only for it to flare up, a similar golden glow surrounding my other self as it did. At the same time, I can dimly hear the crackling of Urataro's voice from below.
And then on cue, the 'monster lady' Shesha charges right into this lecture room. Georgiy and I on instinct leap behind a row of chairs, yet my other self shows no reaction to Shesha at all, nor Shesha to her.
"So that's how it is, hmm? Anytime we make the slightest breakthrough with Shesha, her blasted husband has to barge in and ruin every… thing," The Doctor says as she runs in, her voice faltering as she looks in the direction of my duplicate.
"Doctor, don't look at her. She can't be me!" I yell to her.
Then The Doctor replies and I have no idea what to think. "No, that would be me," she says.
"Honestly, good woma- Doctor, I tell you that voice can't be Professor Ikari. Why in all cosmos would he keep Shesha away from the aid of her own… father?" Baskoro comes in, calls out, and stops just as The Doctor did on seeing my duplicate, or what I thought was my duplicate. Sure enough, both their wounds are glowing too.
"What, don't tell me you're all suffering from deep space fever or something? 'Cause I don't know what you're all looking at, but I'm seeing nothing!" Georgiy says.
Putting it all together I say, "Wait, Georgiy sees nothing, and he's the only one Shesha didn't wound."
"Quite insightful, Lavinia," The Doctor says. I'm sure she means well, but I can't help thinking she already worked that out herself and just wanted to make me feel special. "Now, you say you see yourself before you?" she asks me.
"Yes, myself, only if…" I begin. I wish I didn't have to say this next line, but I manage, "If you'd never rescued me from Oterne and if I, if I became as Those Above would want."
"Why would you not want that?" my duplicate asks, her words making me feel like I have worms all through my spine.
"Oterne? Those Above?" Georgiy and Baskoro, of all two people, say in unison.
"It's another story for another time," The Doctor says to them, but then sighs, "Alright, in short, you'll recall I said I rescued Lavinia from a mindwipe? Oterne's Those Above were the perpetrators. Now, Baskoro dear, do you see some version of yourself before you?"
"No, that can't possibly be me," Baskoro says on impulse, before he admits, "Well, he does bear some of my features, certainly," he then strokes his moustache, "yet this vision before me is no Draconian, but… a human."
"Hah, join the club," Georgiy smirks at him.
"And here I stand before me too," The Doctor says, "my prior incarnation. Or not so prior, if my hunch is correct. I doubt this is another case of Time Lord scooping." She then approaches my other- no, her other self in her eyes, and asks, "Well now, survived the fall into Oterne? Or did that fall never even take place for you- no, for what remains of you? And no, I'm afraid I'm not Seiobo, Guardians rest her soul."
Scooping? Seiobo? Guardians? Even if I had time to ask what any of these were, I expect I'd still get 'another story for another time'.
"Incarnation? Time Lord?" I hear Baskoro mutter to himself, before he approaches his own other self and asks, "So, assuming you are in fact an alternate Professor Baskoro, I do suppose infinite universes means one of me must be human in one of them, tell me. All this nonsense with our Shesha, is it true in your timeline too?" Looking like he's hearing a reply, Baskoro nods, frowns, and goes, "…I see then." I'd ask, but it seems too personal.
"So, a quantum neurotoxin, have we? The infection from those wounds dear Shesha gave us is making us see ourselves from alternate timelines," The Doctor surmises, "Many Worlds Theory in action, though this era should now know it as not just 'theory'. Just like the quantum selves superposed on Shesha."
"Well, I could've easily told you that," Baskoro protests.
The Doctor just pushes past him to confront her own other self. "Well now, Doctor, Theta Sigma, Merlin, what have you, if you're here you may as well make yourself useful," she begins, but then she's wrenched upwards where it looks like something's strangling her! "Ah, I see what's happened in your timeline. The Master succeeded, didn't he?" she then says.
"The Master?" I ask, to keep up appearances anyway. I was already told by part of the TARDIS who The Master is, but I was also told not to tell The Doctor I knew. And it's not like Baskoro or Georgiy know.
"Like The Rani, they're an old enemy. He was made a 'cellmate' of mine until recently," The Doctor says while struggling to get free of her other self's hold, "and in another timeline, it looks like he got his way. Turned my still unregenerated self into a mind-controlled puppet of his, but this is more than mere hypnosis. Some sort of brain implant I take it?"
I'd rush in to help, but I can only see my own other self, still in Oterne. I tense up even trying to look at her, but… I can't just leave her. I can free her if I can just make her feel emotion, like with the Butler, right? "T-Try to remember," I begin, "You're from the 1960s, you live in northwest England, you read lots of books, and not just what Those Above told you to. Austen, Brontes, Alice in Wonderland, A Wrinkle in Time, Carbonel!" I list off, and I think it's working? She looks right at me, becoming less blurred as she does.
"Look, from what you've said my- our Shesha still exists in your universe," Baskoro then addresses his other self, "I saw my Shesha's other human self superposed onto her, does this mean she was taken from your timeline? Even if not, then for all the pearls in Draconia, you can't sit around knowing what happened to any version of your daughter!"
"My apologies for what I'm about to do, but you'll understand once you're me, won't you?" The Doctor cryptically says to her other self. I then see her activate her sonic screwdriver, reach forward and yank out something only she can see.
It's then the glow on our wounds starts to subside, as my other self then fades just as she's about to show an emotion again. Without thinking I rush forth to try and take hold of her, but too late, she's already gone. "Doctor, you think she'll be okay in her timeline?" I ask.
"Hard to say, Lavinia dear, we are talking all possible universes," The Doctor says, trying not to sound dispirited, "Meanwhile, I committed quite the faux pas of forcing a past incarnation of mine to regenerate. Was the price of getting The Master's mind-control circuits off him, the old snake sure wired those in good."
I tried to reawaken my other self's emotions, the other Doctor regenerated as she'd done, and the other Baskoro had been warned what was going on with his daughter. So we'd cured the 'quantum neurotoxin', for however long, by bringing our other selves in line with this reality?
All the while Georgiy has been staring at us taking into and being janked around by thin air. Of course, him not seeing anything had helped us figure out what had happened to us. I try to tell him that with, "Georgiy, ah, thanks for acting as a neutral party there," but he still looks flustered, and not just by the thin air.
"What do you mean 'regeneration' and 'Time Lord'?" he then flat-out asks The Doctor, "You can't be saying you're from Gallifrey of all planets, its people want nothing to do with anyone, you'd think they were a myth. Yeah, this has to be another con you're pulling."
"No, her being Gallifreyan would explain one thing," Baskoro says, unusually agreeably, "The Karshtakavarr was described very differently to the woman before us, him being an old yet spry gent with curly silver hair and a mighty nose."
"…You had to include that last part?" The Doctor asks.
"Ahem, but we found he was a Time Lord, so I assumed he'd regenerated, and it seems I was right," Baskoro goes on. He then looks at me and asks, "Records also have it you were travelling with an earthling girl, my, would your Lavinia be her?"
"Oh, regenerated plenty times more," The Doctor says, "As for Lavinia, oh my no. She's from Earth of course, but the young lady I was travelling with back then was one Josephine Grant". Like with the Master, I'd heard from the TARDIS fairy that The Doctor had taken companions before me, so I try to look like I haven't. She then more gravely asks Baskoro, "Tell me, the last time you saw him, in person anyway, how much did Urataro Ikari talk about us Gallifreyans? Because he brought up my people to me first thing."
Baskoro falls silent for a bit, only gradually admitting, "Well, yes he talked quite a bit about everything Gallifrey. But it's only natural any self-respecting chronophysicist would want to discuss your fine people, they were the pioneers of our craft after all."
"Did he, now?" The Doctor mutters, "Because I may've worked out exactly what Ikari's plotting here."
