The hand of Time is a big steel bolt

[hasthatright]

Who: The Master and Byron Balaz.
What: Sniffing each other out outside the Halloween party.
When: Backdated to 31/10/2010 22:55:23:098 EST.
Where: Outside Ara.
Rating: M for moving it out of the party thread in case things get dicey and off topic.
Status: Complete.

Comments

[baronbalaz]

What might have seemed like the ravings of an (obvious) lunatic actually made a fraction of sense to The Baron. The Nobility hadn't been at war with the Timelords as long as they had without figuring out a few things about how they operated--Nobility scholars who studied them had documented what little they'd learned about them. The Web of Time, if he remembered properly, was the Timlord's conception of history--the basis of their titles as 'Lords of Time.'

In fact, it was one of the reasons the Nobility had taken issue with them to begin with. The idea that a single race had claimed dominion over Time Itself had never quite sat right. Of course, the Timelord answer to that was that Nobility rule over humanity wasn't much better, in fact, it was worse. They's always had a thing for humans, apparently, some more than others, if history was to be believed.

Then, it clicked.

'Oh, this is priceless.'

"How the mighty have fallen." Byron sneered. Obviously all that pride and arrogance of the Timelords had gotten them in the end. "And have you been doing whatever you please here? Is that why you're here? Is this place your doing?" He motioned to the street around them, the babble of life and song difting out from the club, adding an undercurrent of sound to the tense confrontation. Byron didn't doubt for a moment that a Timelord gone mad could be responsible for a town like Aternaville.

[hasthatright]

The Master began to laugh, an hysterical low continuous snicker like the laughs he'd laughed in his best old days. "It's good, isn't it?" he asked, completely pleased.

[baronbalaz]

The Baron grit his teeth--there was a sort of self preservation that kicked in when dealing with the insane that Byron had learned while traveling The Frontier--a way to distinguish harmless madness from hurtful.

"Who are you?" He asked. He'd asked the same of The Doctor and it had been amazing really that the other Timelord had even bothered to reply. But it was obvious now he was looking at two very different ends of a spectrum here.

And his ancestors had written about those rare, mad Timelords, during the period of the war, all giving the same, susinct advise: RUN.

[hasthatright]

People were always asking him that. As though it mattered, as though it would make any difference to their limited little existences if they knew what he had chosen to call himself. As though knowing his name they would suddenly understand his millennium of travail, his life histories, his background, the deepest secrets of his very being.

More lifetimes ago than he could count he had sat on a hill with his best mates and they had come up with their names, thinking that it would mean something, lifetimes later. They would be Time Lords, and they had thought that that would be the key, and that they would know everything. But they'd been blinded by the one thing they couldn't see: their own futures, and the disasters that lay in wait for them.

The Master thought, sometimes, that they should have known better. They had known that they were different from all the other Time Lords that had come before; why hadn't they been able to see that for a species whose entire existence revolved around the status quo, to evolve would be to shatter, to shift the paradigm would be to break it? Time itself could not tolerate Time Lords that wanted to change. Or Time itself had made such unfortunate creatures, in order to bring about or in anticipation of its own destruction.

"None of your business," he spat out. His hand tightened around a familiar object in his pocket.

[baronbalaz]

The mad Timelord's motion didn't go unnoticed and before the rest of his mind quite caught up, Byron was moving, leaping fluidly back--springing close to nine feet in the air from a complete standstill while a thin arch of blue energy shot forward like a whip. It was impossible to fathom that something so small had allowed him to move like that, but it had.

Seconds later there was a soft creak as a nearby car settled on it's shocks, The Baron having landed squarely in the center of the roof. He waited to see the effect of the thread of energy, for the mad Timelord to fall in half, severed clean. The wait was longer than he would have wanted.

[hasthatright]

Mmm, tangy. The Master, in truth, had been exercising a great deal of self control in the months since coming to Canada. How many people had died mysteriously in Aternaville? How many smoking skeletons had been discovered?

Exactly.

This meant, however, that he had essentially been starving himself, and if he had been always hungry before, his hunger was now the overriding imperative of his existence. He obsessed about food, couldn't stop thinking about it, at every moment. The need to eat had become a matter of control, but the allure of food was both locus and fault in the structure of his being. He thought about it all the time, and denied it to himself all the time, and in a way, he didn't even know why he did it anymore. It was an end in itself, without reason or external referent.

But put the food in front of him, practically force energy on him... He loathed the loss of control, but oh the feeling of energy pouring into him, of absorbing it, of feeding himself, for the first time in so long even tasting the most remote glimmer of something that could fill him, could take away his perpetual hunger! It was painfully delicious. It threatened to strip away any last vestiges of restraint he had in him; it could make him raw, a beast, pure appetite eating and eating and eating...!

Enraptured, he threw his head back and spread his arms out and took it in, energised anew, alive.

[baronbalaz]

From his perch, ultramarine eyes widened in a combination of disbelief and horror as, rather than doing any damage at all, The Baron's first line of defense seemed to absorb right into the mad Timelord's body.

'Impossible! It's just not possible!' But a thought had come to his mind: one that merged what The Baron knew of Timelords, of Nobility, and genetic experiments.

And his already chilly blood froze in his veins.

Willing the flow of energy from him to diminish wasn't easy, but if he didn't it would start to really slow him down, drain him of strength he would need to either put up either a terrifying fight or simply retreat.

'I can't leave Alba, what if this monster was drawn here by the volume of people at the party?!' Suddenly, the idea that Alba might be in danger blinded Byron to any other outcome but battle. Glancing down the street to where the carriage waited, Byron smiled tightly and left out a high, impossibly high whistle that at once set the steeds galloping in his direction.

In a blur of movement, the carriage whisked by and Byron reached in an open window to grab the sword he'd taken with him more for decoration than anything.

He never once thought he'd have to use it.

Crouching, The Baron launched himself at the mad Timelord, blade glinting in the soft pools of streetlights. A head-on attack was insane if what he surmised about his opponent was true, if he was some sort of Timelord-Nobility hybrid, blessed, like D was, with the ability to absorb the energy of any attack directed at him.

"I don't know what you are, but I cannot let you past this spot." Byron said, voice cold with determination.

[hasthatright]

He almost moaned as the umbilical of energy withdrew itself. Perhaps he did. He bent in on himself, his arms around his chest.

But the power had filled him, however temporarily. It made him stronger than he had been in a long time.

And the little vampire was running at him with a sword.

Growling, the Master dropped his arms to his sides and let the energy spark between the fingers of his hand. It would be a waste, but this, too, would feel good.

Time subdivided itself. Subdivided itself again. The Master stepped out of the way of the sword, dancing around his attacker.

"You're nothing," he said as he did so, goading him. "You're insignificant. The diluted vestige of a mighty species long since brought to its knees and snuffed out. You think you could stop me. You think you could stand in the way of anything I wanted to do. You're wrong."

[baronbalaz]

The slight smirk that would have been one of triumphant first blood faltered as the mad Timelord flash-stepped out of the way of the blade--

'Timelord, right, even without a ship they can manipulate time in small areas.' But if he could get him to use up the energy he had absorbed in bursts as large as that one, he still had a chance. Whatever the monster's bizarre biology, he'd reveal his weaknesses the longer they fought, much like Alice had.

Byron twirled on his heel, sword following gracefully to just clip the hood of the thick fabric as the Timelord spun to face him. The words stung, but Byron wouldn't be alive if he'd risen to the bait of everyone who taunted him --the only person privileged to do that was his father, and only because the grudge was so personal.

"We'll see who's wrong about what." He said simply, aura seeping out and away from him as Byron himself melded into an air now teeming with a sick miasma, typical of a Noble. It was nothing more than a parlor trick, in terms of abilities, but it allowed The Baron to sink into the shadows that clung to the sides of the buildings around them--not really invisible, but blending in.

Energy absorbers were desperately tricky foes-- close contact was impossible, which meant he had to get creative. He could sense that the carriage was just making a circuit around the block and would pass them again soon, he wanted to end this by the time that happened. As risky as it was, Byron held his sword out and allowed the thin tendril of energy to wrap around the hand until it hovered in the air.

"We shouldn't lose our heads over this, after all." He deadpanned as the blade boomeranged out of the shadows level with the Timelord's neck.

[hasthatright]

The Master jumped out of the way, landing behind the belligerent baron. He reached out and made a grab for the strange humming whip of energy, snapping it to him with all the drive of his ravenous hunger.

He laughed, his voice seeming to echo around the alley. It felt so good; he'd missed the power, missed being more than a shadow hanging about back streets and dumpsters. The drums liked it too. They liked it more than they would have liked the dancing. Oh, yes.

He jumped again, this time up to the roof of the karaoke bar, looking down at the creature that was trying, oh so very hard, to hurt him.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked in a wheedle. "You attacked me! I wasn't doing anything. Do you remember? Can you wrap your small mind around that? You're the aggressor. You're doing this. I'm just defending myself."

[baronbalaz]

The elegant blade swung back, unbloodied into Byron's hand and he growled. He could hear the carriage approaching, the horses whinnying as tiny pistons hissed and screeched for the speed they were moving. There had to be a way to get him away from the karaoke bar, lure him somehow...

Suddenly Byron's eyes narrowed-- his prey, the carriage, the tether of energy, it all fit together. If the monster wanted energy, let him have it, why not? Following him in his leap to the rooftop The Baron let the tendril of energy coil around him, wrapping him a sharp, almost neon blue tint.

And when Byron jumped again, the mad Timelord moved right through the air with him where they both landed in the driver's seat of the carriage as it careened past the karaoke bar. One pale, powerful hand grabbed the collar of the monster's shirt and The Baron smirked.

"I'm doing this because you exist, Timelord. You never had to do anything but breathe." And, with that pointy toothed smirk as the last thing he would see, Byron allowed the tether of energy to flicker and fade, and he shoved him in front of the pounding hooves of the horses.

[hasthatright]

Sharp, heavy hooves descended towards his head. The Master rolled hurriedly out of the way, scrambling to his feet as the carriage sped by. Bruised. Snarling.

He didn't like to be gotten the better of, however temporarily.

The energy crackled in his open hand...and then it faded. He was fed. Who knew when that would be again? There were better things to do with this energy than to squander it all on one offensive creature on a planet full of offensive creatures. Better people than it had tried to extinguish him throughout his lives.

He slipped away, down another alley, back into the interstices of the town.

Someone else could pay for this insult. The Master would feast, or play. It didn't matter, not to him or to the drums, just who it was he played with.

[baronbalaz]

The carriage reeled as Byron took the reigns, circling back in the wide street to where the mad Timelord had collided with the pavement. There was nothing, barely even a blood splatter-- that at least might have been useful. Doing one final, careful circle of the block, he decide the best place he could be was back at the party, with Alba, in case his opponent should change his mind and return.

His mind swam with memories of the encounter--just what was the mad Timelord, exactly? The only being with that level of energy control he'd met was D, and that was due to his nature as a half-vampire. Pulling the carriage back to it's previous spot, The Baron dismounted and tapped the steely hide of the steeds in appreciation before heading back into the bar.