by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk)

A story of the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa, Tegan and Adric.

The copy right of all things pertaining to the concept and characters of Dr
Who is the property of the BBC.  This Story is a work of fan fiction; it has
been written simply for the pleasure it gave me in writing it; and no money
has or will change hands with respect to the story.

The story and original characters are copyright Clive May 2001.


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Chaos Hunt

One.

In a sudden, searing flash of sanity, the will to be herself was returned.
  The oppressive grey mists of the conditioning was cleared from her soul.
Once more, she was in control of her augmented body.  The clarity of her
enhanced consciousness was dazzling; the speed of assimilation left her
breathless.

In one glance, she took in every detail of the vast shadowy space. On the
cleared space between the looming bulks of the rusted machinery, fires had
been lit.  A pathetic huddle of women and children crouched in their lambent
orange light.  Mothers were clutching children in an instinctive, yet futile,
embrace.  A terrible wail of despair was rising from the huddling mass, as
they watched death close in - black and merciless.

She was the leader of that death.

Before the cowering mass of doomed humanity, standing in a protective
semi-circle, were six tall women in golden robes.  They each had great manes
of blond hair streaming.  In silence, these women were facing down her five
dark-armoured Death Commando.  They showed not the slightest trace of fear.
Before her, a seventh golden robed woman was falling back from the savage
sword thrust she had just plunged through the woman's belly. A welling red
tide of life blood was pulsing from the ghastly wound, drenching her black
armour.

"Oh Dear Mercy!" her newly freed mind shrieked at the horror of it all.

She had no time to dwell on the horror, for her speeding mind was already
prompting her with the knowledge that this new found freedom would be
fleeting.  If this gift of will was to do any good? then it must be used
immediately.

She acted.

In one flowing motion, she drew the sword from the falling body; and while
the corpse of the woman was still on its final journey to the filthy
concrete, she decapitated the two Death Commando nearest to her.  At the same
moment, she was drawing her blast pistol and aiming for the most dangerous of
the other three.

These three enjoyed all her enhancements and augmentations; but they were
still under Klitas's ruthless mind-spell conditioning.  It gave her an edge.
The tall powerful woman with cropped black hair died as the blast from the
pistol caught her full in the face, carbonising her head.  The remaining
death commando were already in motion, a mere blur of shadow in the black
body armour.  One loosed off a shot.  She swung the sword, intercepting the
blast.  The blade absorbed the energy, flashing into a white hot bar of
metal.  The ruined sword was smashed from her grasp; but it had given her an
opening.  She shot him in the face.

All this happened in a few microseconds; even so, it took too long, far too
long.  The last of her former companions in slaughter had a clear shot. There
was nothing left to do now - except die!

Her death would be a blessed relief after her enforce service to the
loathsome Darkovah; but she felt angry that all the others would now fall
under the mind-spelling of the Klitas and would die in extended agony now
that she had failed.

She saw the fist buck as the blast pistol loosed.  By augmented
instinct she was already moving,  trying to take aim, with the bitter
knowledge that she could not be in time.

Then a golden robed body was between them, and whirling away in a tangle of
charred blond hair, smoking, sooted robes and loose limbed in death.

Another of the robed women had offered up her life, in an attempt to save the
cowering women and children.  She took the offered chance.  The pistol
in her hand roared. The last of her former comrades in slaughter toppled
among the other corpses on the bloody concrete.

Innocents would live - at least for now.

There was no time for congratulation. Already the greyness was seeping back
into her momentarily cleared mind.  There was only one way to cleanse that
fully from herself.  Only one way, and only moments to find a road to it. She
looked around in desperation at the huge brooding shadows of the machine
room.

There!

A cleared avenue led away between the rusting hulks of the purposeless
machines to a door, and beyond to a wide sky that promised a chance of death
- and salvation.

 "Incarnatress?"

One of the golden robes was coming towards her, a hand held out in
beseechment. There was no time.  She spun on her heel and ran like fury,
going fast, her feet skimming over the rubbish strewn floor.  As she sprinted
between the banks of the silent machines, the shout of the golden robed woman
echoed in her wake.

"Incarnatress?"

She flew out onto a flat roof, under a wide sky, boiling with purple clouds,
racing to destruction on the peaks of black mountains in the distance. The
greyness had all but filled her mind again.  The thin voice of Klitas began
issuing commands.

"Kill!  Destroy!  Put my enemies to the fire!"

Her determined sprint collapsed into an uncertain stumble.  Instead of a
flying leap to the parapet and a plunge into salvation, she fetched up hard
against the chest high wall at the edge of the roof.

It was too late.  She knew it was too late.  Struggling against the
commanding voice of Klitas, she fought her way up to lay belly down on the
wall.  Below, the air opened in a plunge a thousand feet to the jagged black
rocks at the shore of a sea of crimson sand.

One last effort and...

She had lost the race.  The innocence were going to die after all.  She
rolled around to sit on the wall.  One of the golden robes was standing in
the door way, her hair streaming in the gale.  Raising the weapon, she
sighted on the still figure.

And the killing began now.

The golden robed woman made no move to take cover.  Instead, she stepped
fully into the open,  and meeting her eyes, she spoke.

"Remember the baby at Sorak's camp.  Remember!  Remember the baby!"

And she did.  The scene came with a horrifying clarity.  She remembered the
feel of the rough skin, disfigured with sores and the flesh of the arm
withered by malnutrition, as she swept it up and tossed it casually into the
pot of boiling water over the cooking fire.

"Do you want Klitas to compel you to that again?" asked the golden robed
woman.

The woman sitting on the wall let out a soul searing scream of denial, half
raising hands to clutch at her head.  "Nooooo!  Oh Please!  Mercy!  Nooooo!"
and a moment later she had jerked herself back wards into emptiness.

The golden robed woman ran to the wall, peering over to watch the body of her
savior tumbling over and over, dwindling with the distance until the tiny rag
doll was lost against the jagged rocks, standing like fangs around a gruesome
maw, waiting below to swallow up the broken corpse.


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From the beginning point, there was a puzzling sense of duality.  For a long
time, it remained the sole point in the void which she had become.  It drew
on her with a subtle strength.  Only when she surrendered to the inescapable
quality of that duality, did she begin to grow by stages from nothing, adding
to herself all the new sensations as they came to her.

First was the wind, hot and dry, it wuthered and whined about the bloody
rocks where she lay in the crumpled body armour.  Where it caressed her lips,
it brought the acrid taste of the desert.  This, too, was added into her
blossoming totality.  Strands of hair, coiling across her cheek, enlivened
awareness of face and form.  All these things were integrated into the
growing sense of self.  With a little groan, she acknowledged the discomfort
of the ragged rocks under her back, canting her at a crazy, head-down angle.
Hungrily, the duality under-pinning the sense of self, which did not know
themselves, but needed to, added in all these sensations to re-build a
facsimile of the person she had been.

As yet she remained only the external sensations; but she knew that she would
become more in time; but what would she become?  That thought brought a
welter of fear sleeting through her growing awareness.

A hand touched her brow.

Of their own volition, her eyes snapped open.  She saw a woman's face,
blotting out the sky.  The face was oval, and dominated by a pair of large
blue eyes.  A long golden mane was streaming in the wind.  The look of
concern the face bore was replaced by a warm smile.  The woman moved back,
revealing purple clouds.  They were writhing in agony, as they raced before
the gale.  The wind, tearing at the golden robes, made them flap and crack.

The woman moved away a few steps, and sat down on a rock, folding her hands
in her lap.

Staring at the golden vision with wide eyes, the woman laying in the rocks
wet her dusty lips, and croaked out: "What?  What happened?"

"You jumped."

"Jumped?"

"Yes," the golden robed woman confirmed.  She pointed up at the cliffs
towering over them.  "From up there."

The woman laying in the rocks tilted her chin up to look.  Above and behind
where she lay was a sheer black cliff, polished to a crystaline sheen by the
centuries of scouring sand.  It rose up, and up, in a dizzying plunge; and
then, atop the cliff, a huge pile of black stone reared against the racing
clouds.

She lowered her head to meet the penetrating blue gaze of the other. She
asked: "I jumped?"

"You did."

"From up there?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To save us.  To save yourself?  To be cleansed of Klitas's madness?"

"Cleansed?" she mouthed through dry lips.  "Am I cleansed?"  She did not know
why, but that was the most important thing in her existence at that moment.

The woman frowned, fixing her with those penetrating blue eyes, which seemed
to see into the soul.  "That, Incarnatress," she said, "is for me to ask, and
for you to answer.  But, for what it is worth, I suspect that your courage
has undone much of the devilry Klitas has wrought in your body and mind."

"Incarnatress?" The prone woman's mind latched onto the word.  She repeated
it slowly, savouring the taste of each syllable on her tongue.  The sound of
it rang an echo of familiarity from the emptiness in her soul. "You're a
Source Priestess!" she pronounced in sudden comprehension. "No one save the
Brood and the Source Priesthood call us Incarnators - and you are not Brood."

"Indeed, I am not Brood." The priestess inclined her head in acknowledgement.
"As you have identified, so am I named, Destiny of the Sisters Of The
Source."

The other nodded in satisfaction, as another piece of the scattered jigsaw
that her personality had become, slotted into its appointed place.  She
closed her eyes, summoning her strength, then with a grunt of effort, she
pushed herself into a sitting position. On opening her eyes, a dreary vista
of wind scoured desert opened before her gaze, stretching away in ochres,
browns and reds to a ragged horizon of black rocks, dimly perceived through a
haze of blowing dust. Overhead, the sky flickered with jagged discharges of
green energy.

"Oh! Rassilon!" she swore.  "Where in hell is this place?"

"Broken Heart Mountain," Destiny informed her.  "The Teks who used to service
the Beacon called it The Pimple on the Arse-Hole  of the World."

"I can imagine," the woman agreed.  She held a flutter of blond hair from her
face, and peered around at the desolation.  "Rassilon!  What a dreary place!
Why, in the name of the Loom, did I ever come to a time-forsaken hole like
this?"

"You came to kill Klitas, to put that vile monstrosity down.  But you were
betrayed into ambush."

The woman looked blank.  "Klitas?  I don't remember?"

"Perhaps that is a blessing," Destiny said.  "The process by which Klitas
fashions the living beings that fall into its hands into the Death Commando
is hideous."

The woman laying propped against the boulders closed her eyes again.  Strange
and distant memories swirled in the void, horrible scenes that jigged in a
macabre dance in her memory to the accompaniment of her own agonised
screaming.  For one terrible instant, she was once again in the feeding
chamber of the klitas, as the golden androgyny drove the fear and agony to
unendurable heights while it lapped at her blood.  Her mind recoiled in stark
terror from the ghastly memories.  She could not face those memories yet.
Perhaps she never would.

"I don't remember," she almost pleaded with the Priestess.  "Oh Dear
Rassilon!  Don't make me remember." With crawling skin, she fingered the body
armour, dipping a tentative fingertip in some of her blood, pooled in the
folds of the crumpled hard-suit.

"It would be better that you do not remember.  It might serve to trigger
Klitas's conditioning.  Harmony paid with her life to free you from that."

"Harmony?  She would be one of your Thrall?"

Though Destiny's expression remained serene, razor-edged anguish showed in
the eyes.  "Harmony touched you;" she said.  Harmony.  She saw clear what
must be done - and did it!  She gave of herself to you, Incarnatress, and so
gave up her life to the saving of both our community and your life."

In a sudden, and painful, flash of recall, the woman in the armour remembered
the dazzling clarity that had come to her in the vast darkness of the machine
room.  Then she quailed in horror as the welling red tide of blood flowed
 before her inward eye. She saw once more, the body of the golden robed woman
falling away, forever falling away...

a terrible grief welled up inside, not entirely of herself.

"I killed her," she whispered at last, the words drowned by the wuthering of
the wind over the rocks.

"No!" Destiny said sharply.  "Our Sister is not dead.  The essence of Harmony
remains with us all the while you live.  She is with you now, shielding your
soul from the feeding frenzy of the Darkovah.  Without her protection, that
monster Klitas would consume your will, compelling you to an agonised
death to sate its hunger.  Ever will this be so until you are once more
incarnated - or called to the Source."

Kneeling down, Destiny reached a hand to touch a pendant hanging about the
prone woman's neck on a thin chain.  She craned her neck to study the
glittering thing.  The pendant was fashioned in the form of two hands clasped
about a representation of the Seal of Rassilon, and made from some golden
metal.  She knew what it was - the Soul  Amulet of Harmony.  That tiny
fashioning embodied all that had been Sister Harmony Of The Source.  She
frowned at it, wondering why the Source Priestess had adorned her with the
Soul Amulet of a departed Sister; but at touch of Destiny's finger to the
 talisman, the prone woman was suddenly three people in one.  It was such a
strange sensation that she did not hear Destiny's next few words.

"...generation would have failed without Harmony's guidance.  You live by her
gift of life and will continue to live only so long as Harmony shields you
from the mind-spell of Klitas."

"I will die?"

"You will be consumed by the Agony Eater.  In your present state you cannot
alone hold off the Darkovah's mind-spelling.  Only so long as Sister Harmony
is with you can you stay free of its feeding agony."

"Then I am part Harmony?"

"NO!" Destiny said emphatically.  "She and you are Harmony.  And ever must it
be so for you both."

"I am Harmony?"

"You are Harmony," Destiny confirmed.

The newborn chimera that was Harmony was ravaged by a sudden and savage urge
to expel the alien thing inside her.  A soul weakness radiated throughout her
body as the weave of self began to unravel, allowing her to taste an echo of
the agony induced by the mind-spell of the Darkovah.  She recoiled in terror
as more of her memories returned.  A long shudder ran throughout her body.

"You will both die," Destiny warned, watching her with pursed lips.  "Be one
with Harmony - and live!"

The prone woman relaxed.  She was the veteran of hundreds of conflicts.  She
liked to think that her judgement of situations was good.  It must have been
because she was still kicking even after being put through Klitas's
abominable conditioning.  She nodded with a sardonic smile.  This internal
fight for her self was one to walk away from.  Be magnanimous in defeat, she
urged herself.  Looking up, she smiled at Destiny with as much warmth as she
could muster.

"I've mislaid my Loom Name somewhere over the centuries," she said; "but a
name I must have; and so, I shall be, Harmony."

She knew she had done right.  Destiny's smile glowed like a sun in the
greenish gloom.  She leaned closer, and once more, touched a finger to the
medallion.

"Wear the symbol of your self with pride, Harmony." She declaimed formally.
Sitting back on her heels, she surveyed the way the pendant lay like a bright
gleam against the buckled and blood-stained armour.  She nodded in
satisfaction at the lugubrious juxtaposition.  "Carry the symbol of our
Sister Harmony with fortitude." she enjoined.

 The Priestess rose in a smooth motion,  and folded her hands into the
fluttering sleeves of the robe. "And now, I think you must be gone- If you
are able?  All will be for nothing if you fall into Klitas's hands once more.
For now it must be known what a prize you are indeed.  Your special
physiology could not be overlooked a second time, after this.  You must put
yourself beyond the Darkovah's reach and quickly."

Harmony looked around at the dreary vista of desert.  She half shook
her head in bewilderment.  "Where could I go.  If Klitas can reach into
this forsaken spot, then nowhere can be safe."

"You must get off this planet," Destiny told her.  Only stella distances will
attenuate the conditioning in the immediate moment.  In the end, though
 there will be no fighting it.  You must be cleansed of the conditioning if
you are to live free of Klitas's will. There is none here with the skill to
do that...Can not your own people cure you of the mind-spelling?  it is
rumoured that the Incarnators possess much learning in the sciences you have
forbidden to us."

A sardonic smile cursed Harmony's features, as another memory slotted into
place.  She nodded.  "Oh, yes.  The Mighty Time Lords of Gallifrey could cure
me.  The Vapourisation Chamber, they say, cures all ills."

"Then you should go to them," Destiny urged, misunderstanding the remark
 about the Chamber.

Harmony raised a wry eyebrow, considered correcting the misunderstanding,
then decided it really didn't matter.  She said: "I don't know if I can bring
my capsule.  She would not hear me while I was under the
mind-spell.  She still might not answer my call.  She knows full well what a
disaster it would be for the galaxy if she fell into that monster's hands
while there was still the slightest chance that I am enslaved to its will.
So, she might not come -"

"You will not know, until you try," Destiny pointed out.

Harmony nodded, closed her eyes and gathered all the strength she could
muster, putting it into one great mind-shout of need. The homing call
rippled out through the Vortex.  There was a long moment of waiting while the
wind wuthered over the rocks.  Then, out of the sound another grew - the
sound of a TARDIS materialisation.  A few yards away, a grey rock faded into
reality.  The wheezing stopped with a final thump; a jagged split opened in
the rock.

Harmony let out a tiny cry of triumph.  She struggled to rise.  Destiny
stooped down and assisted the woman to her feet, supporting her to the rock.
With reverence, Harmony laid hands on the curving surface.  The deep
thrilling humming flowed through her palms, ran up her arms and penetrated to
the very core of her being, helping to hold back the grey confusion that
threatened to cloud her mind.  letting out a long, low, heart-felt sigh of
relief.  She pressed herself hard against the gently vibrating surface,
bathing in the warm sensations of love and welcome.  She remained like that
for long minutes, hugging the humming rock.  The Source Priestess stood by,
her expression serene.

At length, Harmony let out a long sibilant sigh, and turned to meet the
blue gaze of the blond woman.  The Source Priestess was standing resolute in
the teeth of the gale, her hair streaming, her robes flapping.

"I can go," Harmony confirmed to the Priestess.

Destiny nodded an acknowledgment.  "Then you must - and without delay."

"You must come with me.  I can carry you beyond the reach of Klitas.  You
will be safe as soon as we clear this -"

"NO!" The vehemence in Destiny's denial drove Harmony back against her
TARDIS.  "But -"

Destiny shook her head.  "Would you have me break the sacred trust given in
the long ago?  I cannot leave while that vile monster holds the power to harm
so much as an insect.  This was the pledge given.  This is the sacred duty to
which we SHALL hold."

Harmony bit her lip in frustration.  She had to be away from here and soon,
or the conditioning would claim her soul once more.  There was not the time
to argue with this woman.  "But you have no power to overthrow Klitas,"
she pointed out, consternation rising.

"Your words have the scent of truth to them, Incarnatress," Destiny admitted.
"But what of all those still living under the heel of Klitas - what of them,
Incarnatress?  Who shall give them succour in their time of great need?  Can
you carry them all away from the danger that looms?  I think not.  Mayhap our
Thrall is sundered to five facets; but there is much that we can accomplish
in the thwarting of Klitas, even in our weakened state." She suddenly flung
out an arm in a dramatic gesture to indicate the looming black mountains.
"We shall retreat with our charges further into the Broken Heart Range.  We
will be safe for a time."

"But only for a short time," Harmony warned.  "Klitas cannot let this outrage
against its rule pass unpunished, It'll come again and scour the mountains
until you are found.

"Then we will retreat further into the mountains.   We will hide again."

"You cannot retreat forever.  The mountains are only so big.  And when
Klitas finally comes up with you, the Darkovah will be certain to make a
public spectacle of your extermination as an example."

Destiny nodded sadly.  "So be it.  Whatever the Source decrees.  But we shall
at the least have gained you a breathing space for you to organise your
return to crush the verminous monster."

"I'll return?"

Destiny put her head on one side to regard the Time Lord.  She nodded slowly.
"You are cursed with honour, Lady.  You can no more abandon us in our need
than we can abandon our pledge.  You will return."

Harmony had to admit to herself that it was the simple truth.  And the
woman's sure faith in that truth took Harmony's breath away.  In face of such
simplicity and faith what could she do.

She nodded.  "Of course I'll return.  I'll be back as close to this point as
I can manage Blinovitch permitting."

Destiny inclined her head in acknowledgement of the admission.  "Go then
with our love, before Klitas's conditioning claims you."

In a sudden rush of emotion, Harmony reached out to the woman, taking her
hands in her own.  For a long moment she held the slender cool fingers, their
eyes locked to each other in a deep moment of communication.  Then, Harmony
broke away and moved to enter her TARDIS.  She paused on the threshold for
one last look around at the dreary desolation; then she went inside.

The moment Harmony passed between the portals, her step lightened.  It was as
if a great burden had been lifted from her shoulders.  Under the soft, silver
radiance of the console room, the greyness in the edges of her vision paled.

She paused a long moment, listening to the voice of the TARDIS, speaking
words of welcome in the silken humming of the mighty engines.  Even the
silvery illumination was possessed of that subtle quality of heart-felt
welcome.

Stepping quick and light, she crossed the Console Room, and passed through
the inner door, leaving a trail of dirty and blood-stained clothing crumpled
on the floor behind her.  Naked, save for the pendant, she made straight for
the bathroom.  She felt an overmastering need to bathe, to soak in a hot tub,
and try to cleanse herself of the sense of pollution that Klitas'
conditioning had incused into her very soul.

She found a tub of hot fragrant water waiting.  Stepping straight in, Harmony
slid under the fragrant warmth with a sense of profound relief.  For an hour,
she luxuriated in the tub, trying to soak out all the filth that Klitas's
conditioning had incused into her body.

At last, with great reluctance, she climbed out and stepped into the dryer
cubicle.  The hot air blowers came on.  She sighed, writhing with sensual
pleasure as the muscular blasts of warm air massaged her flesh.  In moments
she was dry.  Fluffed up by the warm breeze, her hair had become a misty mane
of tawny gold about her head and shoulders. Harmony stepped from the drying
cubicle, directly into her favourite bedroom.  Her bare feet sank into the
deep pile of the carpet as she crossed to stand before the wall-sized
 mirror. The carpet was that deep, almost violet blue which she always seemed
to keep for the colour of her eyes, no matter what else changed in the
lottery of the regeneration.  Looking into the stranger's face, she noted
with pleasure that, once again, she had kept the eye colouring.

As she always did on regeneration, Harmony began a critical inspection of her
new physical form.  Beginning at her head she surveyed the changes.  Her face
was more rounded and had lost its former angularity which had given her a
rather predatory look.  Her mouth too was more generous, full lipped and
sensual.  Her new chin and nose were in perfect proportion to give a pleasing
balance to her features.  She spent a few moments trying out a few
expressions to see the effect, and liked what she saw.

Running her gaze down the neck, admiring the curves, hollows and lines, she
passed onto her body.  The muscling of her shoulders was a little
under-developed, but she would soon change that with a program of exercises.
Her new breasts were high and small, set far apart.  She smiled in approval
at that.  It was an improvement on the rather fuller figure she had
possessed before.  Maybe this time she might even be able to become
proficient with a bow?  She cupped her breasts and squeezed them to her
chest, turning from side to side to survey the effect.  Yes, with a binding
cloth, she'd definitely be able to handle a bow.

Dropping her hands, she went on with the inspection.  Her belly was
pleasingly flat and corded with taunt muscle.  The light golden down on her
abdomen thickened into a triangle of blond fur at the junction of body with
thighs.  Strange?  Before, she had always come back dark.  Fingering the
Source Priestess's Talisman hanging between her breasts, she wondered if the
dead woman had anything to do with it?  Dropping the amulet, she went on with
the inspection of her new form, with a slightly jaundiced eye, wondering what
other changes might the Priestess have wrought?

The legs were strong, tapering down to neat ankles, and finally to small
agile feet, almost buried in the carpet pile.  She nodded in approval.  Yes!
Whatever the Priestess had done, this new body would do very nicely.

With the perfect timing, only possible with the profound understanding that
grew between TARDIS and Time Lord with compatible personalities, the mirror
before her shimmered, dissolving to reveal a vast wardrobe.  Harmony smiled
fondly, and looked all around at the bedroom.  This ostentatious show of
affection and reaffirmation of her welcome, sent a sudden surge of pleasure
through Harmony.  All worries that her TARDIS would have reservations about
the conditioning that still haunted the darker recesses of her soul,
evaporated in that instant.  With a suddenly light heart, she plunged among
the racks of clothing and weaponry to kit herself out.

Half an hour later, she emerged with a bundle of clothes and weaponry over
her arms.  She tossed them on the bed, humming to herself more happy than she
remembered being in centuries.  While she dressed in loose white shirt and
soft leather trousers, the mirror reformed.  Reaching up, she gathered her
blond mane into a pony tail and tied it at the nape of her neck with a
leather thong.  Slipping her feet into calf-length boots of black leather,
she straightened and picked up the weapons.  She buckled on a gun belt with
blast pistol on one hip and a long knife on the other.  She looped a baldric
over her shoulder.  The cross-belt held two throwing knives on her chest and
a scabbarded sword across her back, the hilt at her left shoulder.  She
settled the gun belt over her hips and adjusted the angle of the sword hilt.
At last, satisfied with the arrangement, she turned to appreciate the effect.

She fondled the grip projecting over her left shoulder, tensed, and drew the
blade in one flashing motion.  She grimaced at the feel.  She'd have to get
used to the new balance.  This blade was an inch and a half shorter than the
sword she had used in her previous form.  That body had been several inches
taller.  She drew one of the throwing knives from the baldric, and went into
a fighting crouch.

A slow sensual smile suffused her face as she felt once again that frisson of
arousal the sight of herself, garbed for mayhem always induced in her.

At that moment of exquisite happiness, the ponderous Gonging of the Cloister
Bell began to reverberate throughout her TARDIS.  By trained reflex,
Harmony took off at the dead run.

She slammed into the console room and did a quick scan of the tell tales.
They told her nothing she did not already know.  Her TARDIS was mortally
stricken.  The ship was loosing energy and substance at a frightful speed;
and she was ageing centuries in seconds.  The walls were growing faded and
worn through.  Dimly the chaos of the outside began to flicker and coil
within the opalescent roundals.

The Time Rotor was stalled.  In sudden panic Harmony gripped the edge of the
console.  The edges,  under her grasping hands, crumbled.  All the while the
Cloister Bell boomed gloomily.

Harmony could feel the enervating presence of a Chaos Beast, as it squeezed
its substance between the layers of reality surrounding the TARDIS.  It was
easily levering those layers aside, and peeling back the plasmic shell.  In
moments, she would be standing naked before Chaos.

Where were the Brood?

Her TARDIS was doomed.  She could feel the cold chaos of the creature already
within, eating the gallant old heart from the inside.  Her friend of many
lifetimes was dying.

If she didn't get out right now, she'd be next.

With one last effort of its enormous and loving will, her friend held off the
draining presence, gathering to her valorous heart the energy required to
make an emergency materialisation.

In Harmony's mind the fading presence of her friend spoke in that way that
was not words but an expressing of love.

"Go, my friend!  Go, please.  I am done.  GO!"

Harmony hesitated for a timeless, horrified moment while the coiling chaos
blossomed like flowers from the roundals.

There were only moments left. So much to say so much, and now no time for
the saying.
Harmony had become a Time Lord with no time left?

In all that raging insanity the thought struck her as funny and she laughed
out loud.  It was a thin, hysterical sound.

The laughter saved her.  It broke the spell of stupefaction and got her
moving to the doors.  They were fading and crumbling even as they swung open.
She paused in the doorway to stroke a farewell caress over the crumbling
substance of her oldest friend, a terrible helpless rage clawing at her
hearts.

Where were the Brood?

How could this be?

For too long, she hesitated in the doorway, her will to self-preservation
paralysed by the inner turmoil.  She might have stood there to the end, but
for the urging of that inner Harmony, which loosened her grip, and the
violent lurching of the TARDIS in its death agony, which sent her lunging
through the portal.

A searing desert of mica dust accepted her plunging body.  The impact was
hard, momentarily stunning her.  The next instant, she rolled over and
scrambled to her knees.  The mortally wounded capsule was fighting madly to
stabilise a shape.  The engines whined and faltered, as it made abortive
attempt after abortive attempt to fully materialise.  Each time the shape it
tried to assume became simpler, more basic.  Each time it failed to fully
materialise the form.

Harmony screamed and clutched her hands to her ears, but it was impossible to
close out the agonised screaming. The torment was inside her head.
She began rocking from side to side, tears welling into her burning eyes.

At last the TARDIS found its most basic form - the gleaming silver dome of
the plasmic shell.  The dome withered before her horrified gaze, dark stains
oozing over the surface.  The ugly blotches were shining with all the colours
of darkness.

A vast and echoing void was expanding to fill Harmony's soul.  As she
watched, the flickering patch of coherent reality gave out a tiny pathetic
sigh, and winked out of existence.

Suddenly, in the air above the place where half of Harmony had died, ripples
of darkness moved against the dead white of the dust laden sky.  The
irregular stains circled, like a flock of carrion birds come to the feast.
In utter silence, they settled to the white sand, in a half circle about
Harmony.




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