i'm in this mood because of scorn, i'm in a mood for total war - locked;
Days after the world has gone back to normal, most of humanity back at their daily routines with no memory of events, Ianto Jones has not forgotten or forgiven. He's hardly slowed down since - there are people to retcon, official explanations to be given, aliens to deal with, and he has family to take care of. Dafydd and Fred both get retconned; ( Read more... )
Coward. Ianto turns that word over in his mind a few times, an almost mad smile quirking at the corners of his mouth. Coward, indeed. He's only a human, after all - a human who has, somehow, lived through worse than this Time Lord appears capable of handing out. He doesn't dignify the words with a response, not just yet - he quickly presses the button sequence Martha indicated, twists a knob that reminds him bizarrely and inappropriately of his family's TV set when he was eight, and turns in time to see the helmet-like device lowering from above.
"I could kill you," he argues cheerfully. "I could kill you a few times, watch you regenerate, and I don't think it would ever grow old." Ianto steps forward, his expression growing considerably more serious, darker. He drops his voice to barely above a whisper. "But I'm not going to kill you. I'm going to take away everything that makes you who and what you are. I want you to understand that. I want you to know, as you become one of us pitiful humans, that everything is slipping away from you and, this time, you won't get it back."
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For a long moment, the Master simply stares at the human boy in front of him - the tiny, insignificant little lifeform that has, unexpectedly, turned the tables on him - and says nothing. He can think of so many things to say, so many curses and so many promises, to counter the threat that Mr. Jones is about to act upon, but he doesn't speak a word of them. He doesn't say anything.
Until, slowly, his lips curve into a tiny, but manic little grin and he leans forward across the short distance left between them to drop his own voice to a sinister whisper. "I'm impressed." It doesn't happen often, his tone suggests, for there isn't much left in the mundane universe to impress a psychopathic Time Lord such as himself, but this - and Ianto's attitude - seems to fit the bill.
He can only imagine how insulting it is for the human to know that he's made a good impression with the alien who, once upon a now alternate timeline, killed his entire family. The Master rocks back on his heels and his smile turns serene, as if he's not at all worried about the consequences of becoming human - again. "Do it, then."
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As Ianto stands and stares back at the Master in return, he keeps the memories fresh in his mind, feeding the anger, the resolve, the justification in all that he's doing. His entire family, his friends, his team had died, the world had been decimated, Jack had come back more broken than he was before he left. Ianto has no hesitations left. He narrows his eyes and steps back, reaching for the headpiece. It looks so cobbled together in comparison to the elegant lines of other alien technology he's handled in his time at Torchwood. The Time Lords, supposedly the greatest race in all of time and the universe, and yet the remainder of their civilization comes down to this.
Ianto doesn't consider their extinction a pity. His expression hardly changes as he fits the device onto the Master's head, mouth set into a grim line. The compliment curdles, but somehow strengthens his certainty - if he can be this ruthless, then that's everything. He abruptly releases the Time Lord, then turns back to the console, to press the proverbial red button, with an offhanded direction to the guards: "Hold him."
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He straightens his posture as the guards approach to hold him at either shoulder, mouth set in a firm line as he watches Mr. Jones. Deep breath in and deep breath out, preparing for the searing pain associated with changing one's entire genetic makeup and ripping from one's body the very essence of what makes a Time Lord. Everything he is, every brilliant thought and genius plan, everything.
"The Doctor will never let you get away with this," he states, neither a last minute plea nor dark promise. It's simple fact in his mind; enemy or no, the Doctor will not allow this to carry on. "So you better cover your tracks and cover them well, little boy." Because the Oncoming Storm, the Master knows, will engulf an insignificant human like Ianto Jones. And, oh, he hopes he's there to see it.
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There's a moment of silence in which Ianto hesitates - not because he finds himself incapable of doing it, but because he finds it all rather ... funny. Maybe it's the tension of the two years that never were being wound up in his head along with the commencement of the year that's supposed to be, the year they're now embarking upon to live out yet again. His shoulders shake for a second, then he steadies himself and clears his throat. "If the Doctor doesn't approve, then he can join you," he notes shortly, a hand hovering over the controls.
The threat isn't empty. Ianto makes that abundantly clear as his palm slams down on the button.
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... And only then - at that terribly real threat against the Doctor - does the Master spring forward, inelegant and furious, to strain against the guards holding him by the shoulders in an attempt to get at the annoying little twat. He gets no closer than an inch, too restrained and physically out-matched by the guards to put up a proper fight, and moments later the device is active and his entire being is ripped inside out, changed, shrunk, compressed, stuffed away into a pocket watch, and all the while he's screaming despite himself, more rage and anger than any level of pain.
When it's over, when it's finally over, the human left in the wake of the process - Harry Saxon - slumps unconsciously over in the grasp of the two guards.
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Inconvenient as things such as this must always be, the pushing of that button coincides with the Doctor arriving back in the deserved-save-the-TARDIS storage bay, a rather downtrodden look on his face. Martha just gave him the long goodbye, like he'd figured she would before she even began talking, just because of the inexplicably guilty look on her face. He has her phone in his pocket, strangely heavy - he doesn't like to do things like this, holding on to ways for former companions to contact him again, but this time he'll allow it. She's fantastic, Martha Jones, she's the girl who saved the world. He shuffles slowly across the vast bay and exhales a bit of a sigh as he draws up at the door of the TARDIS - and finds it locked. The Doctor frowns, jiggling the handle, then supposing he accidentally locked himself out, turns his key easily in the lock to let himself in.
The Doctor steps through the doorway at the unfortunate moment the Master, with his all-too-familiar headgear, falls quiet and unconscious in the grasp of the guards. "What!" he exclaims, running forward with a panicked look on his face. "What did you do!"
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There's something strangely satisfying about it, standing there and watching the Master writhe in pain, listening to the agonizing screams. Ianto can't feel any sympathy for the alien - in fact, he has no desire to. He observes the process dispassionately, then as the Doctor bursts through the door, nods to the guards to let the unconscious former Time Lord down to the floor. He feels no need to explain himself to the Doctor, either.
"I had hoped you wouldn't interrupt," Ianto notes with a twinge of regret. "But since you're here ..."
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The Doctor drops to his knees beside the Master's prone form, a pained expression on his face. He can't - he can't sense the presence of another Time Lord anymore. Betrayal hits him like an arrow shot through his hearts. There's only one person who could have betrayed them to Torchwood. Stricken, the Doctor places a hand on the Master's chest, feeling the vibration there of a single heart.
"No," he chokes out. "No, no - no! This isn't the way it's supposed to be!" He scrambles for the device, for the fobwatch. This is easily fixed, all he has to do is ...
Get free of the guards, apparently. The Torchwood personnel have the Doctor by the shoulders now, hauling him to his feet before he can do anything drastic.
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Now that he's done it once, it seems like a simple thing to do it again. Ianto promises himself that this will be the last of it, once the two Time Lords are taken care of, then everything can go back to normal and he will make up for the other, considerably more awful things he has done. This is for the benefit of everyone. Jack won't be happy - if he decides to let the Captain know (and he probably won't, as it's hardly a good idea to traumatize him any further) - but he'll have to cope with it. Ianto resets the device and helps himself to a correct guess as to where the Doctor carries his own fobwatch. Fitting it into the device, he then places the headpiece on the Doctor's head. The Time Lord has done so much good, really - but he's too dangerous, his loyalty to the Master is inexplicable and far too strong. Ianto can't trust him, he decides, and steps back to the control panel with a certain callous air.
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"Stop, really - Ianto, isn't it?" the Doctor rambles out. "This isn't necessary, this isn't the way. Just stop, and listen to me." How wrong Jack was, the Doctor thinks sadly, to put his trust so firmly in this young human - he hopes, with a little pang of regret, that the Captain won't suffer any similar betrayals. "Please. Stop -"
Then there's no argument left in his head, nothing except the agonizing, searing pain that he's known before, but still nothing could really prepare him for. The Doctor isn't too proud to scream, with the excruciating feeling of being torn, ripped apart at the seams and shredded into little bits, and put back together.
Then he slumps bodily to the floor alongside the unconscious Master.
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Ianto crouches down and looks at the two former Time Lords, then neatly pockets their two watches, withdrawing at the same time the PINpoint device he'd appropriated from Jack's house. He sets the coordinates to their default destination, and reaches for one hand from each of the men, twining them together with the device between them. Then he pushes the button and steps back, watching with grim satisfaction as the two bodies vanish.
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