x01 [holo]
With a slightly shaky arrival, the Master stumbles down the ramp, deep thought creasing over his face. This was certainly not the Valiant; he knew every corner of that ship. He pats himself down, specifically checking around his upper chest and glancing over it in surprise after his hands come up clean: no bullet wound, but dried blood within the
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The Master chuckles again, but it's harder now to keep the sneer off his face. "Oh really? And here I was beginning to think that you missed me so much that you had to resurrect me into this quaint city." Whether he means it or not, it's hard to tell. "What, with how broken up you were while I died in your arms," he adds after a moment, strolling casually towards the Doctor. He still keeps a fair distance away from him, circling around to the side.
He then makes a point in searching around where the Doctor came from, expecting a member of the fan club to rush in. While it's possible the Doctor told whoever was with him to stay behind, companions never listened. They dug themselves right into trouble; if there was anyone, they would be here as well. Slowly, the smirk creeps back across his face. They were both predators now. "Where are all your precious human companions, Doctor? Did you leave them behind, again? Or no... they leave you, isn't it? Maybe it's a mix of both."
He is curious, of course - about the Doctor, not his gaggle of fans - if it's actual age that has caused the Doctor to look so... old... or if something had happened. Perhaps he burned another race and planet out of existence. Oh wouldn't that be wonderful?
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"Missed you?" snorts the Doctor softly, "Why in the name of Rassilon would I miss you? Of all the people in the cosmos, if you think I could resurrect someone here, you'd be daft enough that it'd be you? Oh, blimey you've always had a way with being completely wrong. I was broken up then, Master, but it's been quite some time since that happened. I'd think by now that I'm well over it."
The Doctor's eyes narrow at the reference to his companions, and if it were possible, he'd stiffen even more. He doesn't move in though, doesn't take a single step closer or make any sort of move save to blink once or twice. He watches the Master with a hooded, black gaze, and states flatly, "They're dead." None of the reactionary, self-righteous ranting now. Some of the cold drops from him for an instant, his expression softens into sadness rather than cold. Maybe he's thought of Martha or Rose, or any number of his other companions that he left behind; or that left him. It's no use now, though.
He returns the Master's cruel grin, that expression fitting his face a little too easily. "Where's Lucy at? Got bored of her, did you? I imagine getting shot in the stomach by your beloved human companion might put a little bit of a dampener on your relationship."
Still no Mystery Machine. No Scooby Doo. No meddling kids. The Doctor shifts on his feet, turning to face the Master, gazing into the other man's eyes. "That aside. So here's what we have in front of us, Master. No way to leave, no way to escape. Everything anyone comes here needs can be gotten from those hatches," he gestures towards the replicators placed in the corner. "Food, water, books, whatever you'd like or need, and yes, if you're feeling a particular bent for world domination I'm sure you can get whatever explosives and nonsense you need to rule the world and be Master of All from those things as well. Obviously you've figured out the communications devices, they're really not good for anything except for talking to other people on them. I they've got Freecell and Solitaire on them in the games section. I know there's a chess function."
The Doctor pulls out a bag of candy from his suit coat pocket - it's not at all squished. Then, he drops it into the Master's hand. Jelly babies. A full bag of them, and it doesn't look like there's a flavor the Master dislikes. There is a faint tremor in the Doctor's hand, and if the Master's being as observant as he usually is, he might catch it.
"Try not to break anything," he murmurs lazily, looking full in to the other man's eyes. The beginning traces of old fear begin to be evident in the Doctor's face, but it doesn't creep into his voice quiet yet. The breath he takes in between his sentences is becoming a touch more shallow. "I really don't feel like cleaning up another one of your messes. I spent the better part of my life making sure you didn't blow up the Earth or destroy civilization as we know it, and frankly? I'm tired. If you really want to rule this place, I'd really honestly recommend against it. I don't really give half a pence if they tear you limb from limb. Not everyone here is a defenseless, stupid ape, and I don't think they'd take kindly to some skinny git in a suit telling them that he's taking charge."
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He watches the Doctor with a neutral expression while he speaks, but internally anger boils through his system. He has of course gotten more information out of the Doctor than anyone, just as he wanted - about Taxon and the Doctor - but at what cost? Infuriation at its max? The insistent need to rip apart the Doctor and scatter him across the city grows as the drumming loudly urges him.
The Master’s gaze hardens. He had expected more than just a moment of sadness from the Doctor regarding his companions; expected him to fall apart and barely continue to hold himself. Not whatever the hell… this was. When he responds, however, he keeps his voice as level as possible, “Dearest Lucy? Haven’t the faintest of clues. Probably playing the role of the poor damsel who’s lost her Prime Minister husband.” His brows crease. “But then, you say it’s been ‘quite some time’ since then, hm? Really, Doctor, just how long has it been?” his finishing words across quiet and harsh. “Because the last thing I remember was being aboard the Valiant,” he hisses. But if the Doctor is paying any attention, he will catch the honesty in that statement. He did not know how he made it into this city after what had happened.
He stares at the bag of jelly babies with a look of disdain. In a different situation, the Master would practically be loving this hidden side of the Doctor - egging it on, even - but with his own aggravation spiked and the drumming wrapping through his mind, he ‘tosses’ the bag back at the Doctor. If it falls to the floor, he doesn’t care. It may be childish, but it was only the Doctor watching, after all.
Apparently, he can make his own bag, anyway.
His gaze narrows slightly when he catches the flicks of fear; that’s more like it. How could the Doctor not fear him? And how dare he opt out from their life-long game? What happened to fighting across the cosmos? How did he suddenly expect he could stop?
There’s a lot he could say in response to the Doctor now, but all he does is bark out a laugh and drawls, “You’re pathetic.”
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"It's probably been something like four hundred years since the Valiant, maybe more, maybe a little less," replies the Doctor honestly, because why would he have any reason to lie? The Master can fill in for himself all the time in be "I'm actually not quite sure about how much time it's been since I stopped keeping count after about two hundred years. The TARDIS really hasn't been keen on telling me, so, I guess I'll never really know."
The Doctor is desperately clinging to nonchalant and careless - the alternative is losing it absolutely and clinging to the other Time Lord like a lost puppy, and blimey, that's just undignified. It's the Master. It's the last bloody person in the universe that he wants here, but then again, he's the only person that could ever be considered remotely the Doctor's equal. Except for maybe River Song....
He avoids eye contact as the Master rails at him, calls him pathetic, letting out something of a long, exasperated sigh. "Yes, yes, we all know what a terrible example of anything I ever am. Pacifism is useless, humans are stupid and the entire cosmos is yours to rule. Fine. Rule it, Master, take your rightful place as 'Lord of All Things'" and there are quotation marks hovering in the Doctor's fingers. He rolls his eyes. "And rule us all with an iron fist. I surrender, the end, the galaxies are yours." Sarcasm is clear in the Doctor's voice now, though it probably wasn't when he started. Biting, hard cynicism edged with real bitterness, with real hurt.
The Doctor snorts derisively.
"Do you ever shut up? I mean, really, do you think anyone takes you seriously anymore?"
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Lucy. Lucy. Oh, she had such potential! Why did she have to slowly wither over time? A rose petal plucked from the source, still bleeding red but becoming so frail. He had high hopes for her, he did! She may have given him a ‘win’ over the Doctor, but if he saw her again, he might just have to ‘repay the favor.’ It’s only fair.
And then the Master is silently watching the Doctor, ever the observant one. Reading his lines, his features. Yes, this Doctor has changed. For just a fraction of a second he relishes it, then he straightens and suddenly, with only the sound of him clapping the drumbeat against a leg, he walks passed the Doctor towards the exit. There’s an air of purpose coiling intently around him: the Master was leaving the Doctor.
The sound, he hopes, would annoy the Doctor at least some way. The other may have been acting strong, but he had cracks. He’s always had cracks, and over four hundred or so years they had reshaped and formed in new places, but they were there, and the Master would find them.
After there’s a great rift between them, he pivots around swiftly, throwing arms wide open. He shoots the Doctor’s question right back at him, voice echoing along the Sanctuary walls, “Do you think anyone takes you seriously?” He cocks his head to the side a notch. “Really. I wonder how many people the Doctor has made better after all his time alone. I bet it’s less than you would have preferred. You’ve never really been anyone’s savior, and why you ever cared about those insignificant others, I’ll never understand.” ‘Others’ being anyone he’s tried to save; any planet, any race, not just those stupid humans.
His head tilts back down and he stares at the Doctor through a lidded gaze. “You’re no ‘doctor.’ You’re only…” He trails off, letting the words linger between them before he airily adds the Doctor’s true name, ready to watch him spiral into other depths. But he doesn’t wait to find out if it happens; he can’t. Now he truly leaves, because if the Doctor can recover from those words, the Master does not want to hear his reply.
He keeps up the dignified walk until he’s out the door, and then he runs.
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And all of that amusement drains out of him again, leaving him cold again as the Master brushes past him. "People fear me now," he snarls, actually pursuing the man, taking steps after him. No one interrupts him. Especially when he's talking. Especially when he's in the middle of humiliating the Master, driving him mad for the first time in centuries and Rassilon, does it feel tremendous. There's no way this man is walking out on him. "People take me seriously because I burn their villages and their tiny little worlds if they don't. See, Master, I don't have to be afraid of the moral repercussions of stopping a galaxy-eating entity by destroying the heart of a planet anymore because I don't bloody, care. Good of the many outweighs the good of the one, right?" He laughs, flashing a cruel, broad smile, "I'm the savior of the entire universe. They need me." The set of the Doctor's shoulders, the predatory way he advances in the wake of the other Time Lord. All a little strange, but somehow not quite out of place with this man.
Even as the Doctor speaks though, that particular instance pulls at him - there'd been no other way, and if he he hadn't.... He still hears their screaming through the monitors in the TARDIS, hears his ship's distressed singing against that horrible, terrible noise, of all those lives being snuffed out. He shoves it aside, face still cold, but there's one of those lapses again. Just for a second...
The mention of his true name leaves him momentarily speechless, and then furious. Blindly furious. Anger rises in him and clouds over everything else, over the pain, over the sorrow, over all of the memories of every world he'd had to burn to save a galaxy, over the sun he'd had to extinguish to save a neighboring system. Pompeii and Vesuvius. A few moments pass, and the Master has slipped out the door like a snake in a red dress. Or a black suit. Take your pick.
Before he realizes what his feet are doing, he's taken off after the Master like a mad thing, shouting after him as he does so.
"I made everyone better" comes the snarl as the Doctor pounds after the man. "Everyone! And what do you do? You destroy! You consume! You eat and eat, but why, Master? You couldn't possibly face up to the fact that the idea of being in a universe without me terrifies you. You'd destroy a million worlds if it meant I came back, and the fact that I never did just kills you, doesn't it!? COME BACK HERE."
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The Master grits his teeth, taking in the path ahead of him carefully, and then turning back towards the Doctor, backpedaling quickly. "Oh sure. Because the universe really wouldn't somehow keep surviving without the Doctor! I bet the human race didn't make it to the end of the universe because you were there every, single time picking them up from their filthy ruin!"
He pauses temporarily, knowing that he was about out of space to keep backing up. Wall behind him - building of sort. Left and right paths... which would be better, hm?
With a sneer, he crosses his arms and continues, "I don't need you, of all the bleedin' people in the universe. I don't need anyone. I'll destroy a million - billion - worlds because it's fun. Bring the universe to its knees." He smiles a toothy grin and shifts his stance. Left would be a good escape route, he thinks. "Oh Doctor, just how many worlds have you burnt out of existence like Gallifrey? Wasn't it simply fantastic?"
If the Doctor gets too close again, he'll be met with a swift, cheap kick to the shins. There's only so long he'll tolerate the other man's presence. But there's a certain thrill in this, something he can't quite admit to yet. Here's that notorious, remarkable 'Oncoming Storm', and the Master has to wonder how many other names the Doctor has acquired after all this time...
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"Oh, but you do," the Doctor's voice is a low, wicked growl. His words are drawn out, spoken slowly, like someone addressing a particularly dense child. "You, the universe, this place. All need me." Black eyes glittering, he draws a little closer, though not quite close enough to invade the Master's space. "You'd destroy a billion worlds, and then what? Hn? What would you do. You'd act out, throw your little fit, annihilate billions upon trillions of innocent people and all for what!?" Suddenly the Doctor is shouting again, and the sheer force of volume behind his voice causes birds to shoot skywards from their perches. His words bounce off the bricks and the alleyways before the area is returned to silence. "All for what, Master? Just so you can say you could? How... petty. How very juvenile. A superb genius of a mind and all you can do with it is threaten to kill people and burn planets. Oh, you do need me, you'd get bored without me. Without someone chasing after your heels wiping the tears and the spit-up of every civilization you've tortured."
A chilling smile creeps its way onto his lips, and he circles the Master slowly - quite the role reversal, shoes raising a small puff of dust every time they slap against the limestone brick below their feet. "Fantastic? Fantastic doesn't even begin to cover it, doesn't describe the sheer amount of power that comes with directing a sun to snuff its light. It's simple, a little tweak of the core there, I didn't burn worlds, Master, I just let them freeze to death. Seemed more fitting. I say the world will end in ice and all. Of course, if I hadn't put out Maeschulemaith XII, half of its resident galaxy would have gone up in flames from the star's eventual nova - call it preventive maintenance, I suppose?"
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This was something he forced himself to believe. Took the words into a corner of his mind and let the drumming shape them into a new concept.
Something changes, then, because now he's starting to really see the Doctor. Almost accept it. The Master makes sure to never allow the Doctor to get behind him, stepping around slowly so that he's always facing him. All his anger seems to suddenly leave him with a snap that breaks his tension. He claps his hands together, a strange, intangible delight veiling him. What a better day this was becoming!
The Master, now absolutely giddy in contrast to the Doctor, darts forward as if the motion would help push his pleasure through the Doctor's pores. "This!" he exclaims, gesturing to the space around the other, "the things that you can be capable of, Doctor! Why do you hide it? Unless in four hundred and some odd years you've learned otherwise."
With only one confrontation in Taxon, the Master couldn't be sure. How did the Doctor act around other people? In daily life? Did he force a mask over himself and bottle up his true being so everyone saw him as a goodie-two-shoes? No, no, no... that wouldn't do. That wouldn't work.
"Come on, Doctor. The things you can do with all this anger and power flowing out of you! Don't you see? It's what the universe wants. It drags me back, here of all places, after I should very well be dead. It's pushing us together again and again..." He lowers his arms and they rest motionlessly at his sides. He still looks absolutely pleasant, but he's calmed slightly. "This is the way things should be."
He shifts again; straighter, an air of significance taking over. He welcomes the drumming. He welcomes their plots, their madness. It's all so fitting right now.
A challenge creeps into his voice, "You say that people fear you. I dare you to prove it, Doctor. Because I bet this city hardly has any fear of you, and oh, maybe they should." This destructive side... he wants to see it so much it aches. He only wishes that if he could truly make it happen, that all the Doctor's former companions could be here to watch. Wouldn't that be a show.
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"I'm capable of anything," murmurs the Doctor, keeping close tabs on the Master's movement following it with his eyes. "Anything and everything. People do fear me, Master, but not because I create these grand spectacles of destruction and sheer power for the sake of creating. That gets too predictable after awhile. They're afraid of me, but because they don't know what I'm capable of. One minute, the Doctor, the poor, poor Doctor who just wants to make everything better, who needs people to need him, who wants nothing but peace and then...?" And he leaves that thought trailing off into open space between them, like heady smoke in the sunlight.
Edging forward tentatively into the Master's space, meeting his eyes, the Doctor studies him with that particularly alien look, black-eyed and nigh empty. Like someone studying a strange, undiscovered species of bug, actually. Then, something changes and just the tiniest amount of wonder shines through. The Doctor reaches out, brushing his fingertips across the ridge of the Master's left cheekbone. "You're real," is all he says. There's an unguarded flicker of telepathic communication at that spare touch, a flash of profound loneliness following as an undercurrent to two words.
I need... There's a little something of the younger Doctor, the Doctor the Master knew once as a young boy named Theta. Vulnerability. Fear. Even though the thought trails off, the intention is clear. You. Your help. This is the way things should be. It's the same old game, 'round and 'round again, and perhaps the Master doesn't need the Doctor, but the Doctor needs him. He opens his mouth to speak, and everything balks at the idea of this, of showing the Master exactly what he wants to do, of explaining everything... and this is madness, but if there's one mind, one person in all of Taxon who can keep up with him, who can think with him rather than being dragged along with simple explanations, it's this man.
"This place," he says, quickly changing tack. The change of demeanor helps him keep his head on straight. He hopes. "This place is run by computers, so far as we can tell. Everything, right down to the tracking of people, making food, anything. Everyone knows where everyone is at any time they like." The Doctor's mind is working quickly. "Aside from one glitch where the sky turned into code - daft I know, some sort of error - I've been completely unable to access any of the base code of this place. There's been no reaction though. I've been in places where if you tampered with the computers or the code, or even tried, there'd be all sorts of bells, alarms, whistles, angry guards, name it, there'd be a reaction. No reaction. Not here, not in all of the time I've been here."
The Doctor paces away from the Master, brain working at full tilt now.
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No moral prattling now. None of this necessity for peace. The Doctor is not attempting to convert the Master, not attempting to show him a better way. There's no need for that, there's not really even a chance of succeeding at that. Brute forcing the man's will has never worked in the past, why would it work now? The Doctor takes a deep breath, and looks at the Master, really looks at him, waiting rebuttal, awaiting mockery, because that is how this man works. Even when something makes sense.
"I've had time to think," says the Doctor, drawing closer. His voice is soft, cautious. He's not sure if this is the right approach to be taking, but it's the only one he's got. "Ever since I left Earth for good, there's only been one question in my head. Why. I've spent my entire life defending, protecting, throwing myself at impossible causes. Meddling in the ways of other species lives, trying to make sure everyone lives... and all I could think of, all those years in the darkness, staring into the end of time was why."
The Doctor meets the Master's eyes, pained.
"I don't have an answer anymore. I could rationalize all I wanted, but when it came down to it, there really wasn't a reason. Not one I can remember now..."
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His help, yes! Yes, that was exactly what the Master wants to hear! Keep going, Doctor. Keep going into that darkness that has made its residence in your eyes - he recognizes the thrill now. It’s priceless and amazing and the Doctor is clueless to how much the Master’s mind is rolling through it. Such victory, starting with a death at the hands of Lucy onboard the Valiant to resurrecting in the City of Taxon to this older Doctor, to this Doctor that has finally learned something of use.
He grasps to the Doctor’s next words, following them with no problem. This was worth listening to, every bit. Wide-scale destruction? Always made a good stress reliever. Take a shot at a country in the morning during the Year always, always made up for the stupidity he had to deal with daily. Maybe an afternoon shot, with the tea, then charmingly swipe up the ship’s comm. and announce the new death count to everyone! Such a shame it had to end…
But this? This was fascinating. Perhaps he didn’t need the Toclafane to do his dirty works; perhaps all he needed was a fine and willing Doctor to make it happen. The perfect tool, almost. His eyes narrow at the other’s pained look. Do not grow soft on him, Doctor. That doesn’t do this plan any good, not unless the Master feels like breaking him himself. Guilt does not fit in right now.
“It’s pointless, that’s why,” he snaps. “‘Why’ even bother rationalizing? Don’t bloody make excuses for things, Doctor - they’re so ill-suited. Your life is built on them. You can’t find an answer because there is no real one.” And that is all the ‘mockery’ the Doctor gets. More would only sink him back into that depressive pile of worthlessness, which is not what the Master wanted currently. It’s such a downer causing destruction when there’s someone wallowing in sadness nearby, and not even because of his actions.
No, he needs the intelligence of the other to make this work; the Doctor knows this city, has been in it for quite some time. It’s knowledge that the Master hasn’t even had the time to begin to accumulate, but give the chance and he’ll have what he needs about the place and its poor, trapped people. And if he can keep this side of the Doctor, then he will still have his use, too. He’s certainly not about to let it go now that he’s seen it.
“You mentioned that the ‘hatches’ could likely create explosives,” he comments idly, subtly observing body movements, despite keeping his eyes locked to the Doctor’s own. “That would seem the place to start, would it not?” Although, destruction and possible chaos temporarily aside, he would like to ‘settle in’ to the city a bit first. Discover the way of things for himself.
The Master won’t be alone in the destruction, however. Oh no, if the Doctor thinks he’ll just point a finger where he wants to Master to set the charges, then he has another thing coming. No, the Doctor will be there, too! So that the Master can watch him enjoy it. So that he can be sure to smother out any of the other Time Lord’s doubts the instant that he sees them, and then make the fires climb higher.
Because that is how one feels and hears passed silence.
That is how one works with the drumming.
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Then the Doctor whirls around to face the Master, eyes bright, glittering with triumph, the realization made, the connections woven together. "You're right," he repeats. Give him a minute, he'll calm down.
"The hatches do create explosives. Any kind you want. Good grief, if we checked the database from the TARDIS I'm sure we could come up with something far more potent than C4, though, I think it'd be fairly amusing to broadcast a C4, over and over and over again and then blow something up." The Doctor giggles. Honestly, giggles. There's a mad, brilliant light in his expression, especially his eyes, and he just grins at the Master.
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"You're right."
So much he feels from two words.
Maybe he won't shoot Lucy the next time he sees her. Maybe he'll sweep her into his arms and give her the kiss of all kisses. He can feel the universe in his grasp now, so close. "You can't save people who don't want to be saved," he hums his reply, bubbling openly with energy. Their change in conversation was like a whiplash effect, and he was rather surprised they even made it to this point. Right here, right now, was the rarest of opportunities.
And oh good, the TARDIS was here. Not that the old girl would be very happy to have contact with him, although he was curious regarding how she put up with this different Doctor. It wasn't as if she could change pilots; her options were a bit limited.
He almost returns the Doctor's grin, but no, he isn't exactly prepared for that. There was the slightest of possibilities that he had to tread carefully around the Doctor... While he doubted this change could be some sort of trick (it wasn't in the Doctor's style to lie, or even be able to hide the fact), he was not about to walk into something that would destroy all his power all over again. He wasn't looking to die again anytime soon.
There is still a flow of energy about him, however, and he idly taps his pointer and middle fingers against his sides, raising a brow to the Doctor. "Then I suggest you get started on that, Doctor. I have a city to check out."
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