Owls in the Vortex

THE CYBER WITCHES: PART 1

The date was December 23rd, 2019: almost twenty years have passed since a now forty-four-year-old Eda had left the TARDIS, during that time she had fallen into a routine of brewing and selling potions, using the portal door to travel to the human realm to find junk and tricking idiots to buy said junk for some quick and easy snails. It wasn't much but it paid for elixirs and food for herself and King.

Eda was resting in her nest when she was rudely woken up by Hooty's all too familiar and honestly annoying voice.

"Hoot, you have a visitor Eda!" the house demon called out joyfully, ugh she did not need this sort of thing at... three in the morning? Eda was wholly flummoxed at the thought of someone in their right mind thought it was ideal to come to the owl house at three in the morning. She groaned and instructed Hooty to shoo them away, whoever they are, they can wait for another two hours. To her annoyance, Hooty seemed adamant about letting this visitor in.

"Hooty if this visitor is so damned important then why don't you tell me who the hell is it that is visiting at this un-Titanly hour?"

"It's Lulu, Hoot-hoot!" the Owl tube said gleefully

Lilith, what on Earth was she doing here, let alone at a time like this? Carefully she left her nest, she did not want to disturb King's sleep as Hooty had her. As she got out of her nest, she put on a sweater, the morning was chilly and it covered up a painful memory that was the scars on her wrist. As she was putting on her shirt, she noticed an old photo of her and Camila lying on the floor, which briefly brought back some fond memories though the memories, for now, she stuffed the photo into her pocket before heading to the main floor where she could hear Lilith calling for her name. There was something off about it though, her tone was off, almost as if she sounded scared and worried. Urgency took over as she opened the door for her, she was shocked to see how bad she looked. Her hair was a tangled rat's nest, heavy bags were under her eyes which were a very concerning red, if it weren't for her breathing she would've mistaken her for a risen corpse.

"Titan! You look horrible, when was the last time you've had a decent night's rest?"

"I-I don't know Edalyn, four or five days I think," Lilith groaned as she entered the owl house, she shuffled her way to the couch before collapsing on it. She looked around and noticed quite a few empty bottles of hard apple blood lying around "Should I be concerned about the abundance of empty bottles?"

"What, pfft no I've just been... having a lazy couple months that's all, haven't had the motivation to do some cleaning ya know," Eda lied through her teeth and Lilith had seemingly bought it, or she was just too tired to give a damn right now "So what's got, you all Haggard and miserable?"

Lilith shot Eda a brief glare before breathing out a sigh "I was hearing these awful sounds for the past few days at my home, it was like like jagged metal scraping against a board of slate," she shuddered as she thought about the sound "I tried telling my landlord about it, then utilities but they kept saying that I was delusional or making things up. Eventually, I got fed up and decided to search for the source, I nearly tore the place apart trying to find the thing, but when I did well, I thought you might have an idea what it is," Lilith produced a small silver creature that looked to be a mix between a silverfish bug and an actual fish "It's dead. Still, I figured that you might have an idea since I heard rumours about you travelling with some sharply dressed stranger."

Eda flashed a confused look, how the hell did someone see Eda with the Doctor- she wasn't even in the Demon realm when they met, though to be fair she did meet him at Madison Square Garden, so someone disguised as one of those weirdo attendants of that night's 'sport' event might have spotted her, but she doubted that since she was the only known Witch to have a door to the human realm. She snapped out of her train of thought though when Lilith handed her the creature, she had a feeling that she already knew what it was but, with a keen eye, she observe it from tail to head, but just holding it tipped her off on what it was the way it kept some warmth from her sister's hand and the metallic sounds that came from her nails making contact told her all she needed to know.

"Lilith, you said that you talked to your landlord about the noise- so I'm guessing it's safe to you're renting, right?"

"What does this have to-"

"Answer the question, Lilith."

"Yes I am currently renting"

"Are you living in an apartment or a townhouse?"

"Apartment, why-"

"I'm guessing the rent was almost suspiciously low then?"

"Is there a rest stop between now and the bloody poi-"

"I'll take that as a yes then, I'll give ya one last question then Lily, Do the other residents seem to rotate out, almost like they're there the first moment and the next their gone without a trace and given a half-assed answer of 'they changed their mind' or 'they got a new job'?"

Lilith seemed to pause and think about it "Yes, I haven't stayed there long, no more than a couple of months at most. But I did notice the unusual rate at which my fellow tenants were 'leaving', now could you please tell me what this has to do with that creature?"

"Well Lily, this creature is a Cyber-mat," Eda began to feel a sense of dread creep over her soul, the memories of the last time she had encountered those technological monstrosities. A lump formed in her throat and it took great effort to swallow it down "when there are Cyber-mats, their masters, the Cybermen are usually not too far away."

"Cybermen, what are Cybermen?" Lilith asked

"If you ask me, they're a techno-fetishist cult that hides under the thin veil of being a 'race'. They build their numbers by abducting people and shoving their brains into metal husks with a bunch of stuff that interferes with the electrical and chemical impulses related to emotions. And they will keep growing those numbers until all are like them, or are ground to dust in the sands of time."

Lilith gave her a concerned look, she never saw Eda behave or talk in such a way. All that joy and playful mischievousness were gone, replaced with fear and repressed hatred. It honestly terrified her to no end.

"We have to do something Eda, perhaps I could inform Emperor Belos and have some coven-"

"NO! you are not going to do that, not only do I distrust that tyrant, but you'd also be unwittingly handing those nightmares in silver more recruits. No, only you and I can handle this problem, get some rest now because you're going to need it."